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Specs & Data

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

These are specifications and data about vintage saxophones that I have gathered or discovered over time. This same data also powers the Sax Shop Companion desktop app, which can import and export all of it. Everything here is a work in progress; if you have corrections or data to contribute, please get in touch.

Saxophone Serial Number Lookup

Pick a manufacturer and enter a serial number to find the approximate year a saxophone was made.

Adolphe Sax's Last Patent: A Man Ahead of His Time

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Plate I of Adolphe Sax’s final saxophone patent, November 1880. Selmer was founded 11 years later and would eventually buy the Sax business and workshop from Adolphe’s son. INPI archive.

I recently purchased high resolution scans of the complete 23-page file of Adolphe Sax’s final saxophone patent (he holds later patents for other things including electroplating!) from the INPI archive (the French patent office). I had the whole thing transcribed and translated into English by Claude (Fable) — the full translation is here. Genuinely uncertain readings are marked as such.

Leblanc Saxophone History

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Leblanc “Le Rationnel,” serial #1 — the very first Leblanc saxophone, in silver plate. The bell is engraved “Le Rationnel — Tout Maillechort — G. Leblanc — Paris.”

A guest article by Uwe Steinmetz. This history was researched and written by saxophonist and composer Uwe Steinmetz, and originally published on his website. It is reproduced here — compiled from that article and his companion research thread on Sax on the Web — with his kind permission. © Uwe Steinmetz; please credit the author. Visit Uwe at spiritualjazz.net, and see the original post and ongoing discussion in his Sax on the Web thread.

Original C.G. Conn Letterpress Blocks

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

These are original letterpress blocks from C.G. Conn dating from the 1930s-1950s.

JustATuner

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A free, open-source desktop tuner for musicians. Two tools in one window: a 12-wheel chromatic stroboscopic tuner for everyday tuning and intonation work, and a just-intonation drone with live interval analysis and a vintage Lissajous CRT for ear training against true ratios. Download links at the bottom of the page.

Runs on Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon), and Linux. This page is a condensed version of the full README on GitHub.

Features
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Stroboscopic Tuner
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The Second Selmer Balanced Action Alto Ever Made

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is the second Selmer Balanced Action Alto that was ever made. And it was the first one that was shipped to North America.

It had several unusual features that disappeared quickly as the balanced action run continued. I highlight these in the video, and I took a couple photos of them below mid overhaul. I only actually took one photo of it after the overhaul was finished! So the video is the best documentation.

Solid Silver Rampone & Cazzani Saxello

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Well here’s something you don’t see everyday. I have to admit, even though I am well aware of the mechanical challenges that often come with a Rampone saxophone, when they are put right they have a lovely tone and good gracious they are so beautiful. This particular instrument is solid silver, which I have not seen before. It was passing through the shop for a little tune-up, with someone previously having done a good deal of work to get it into good shape. It played very nicely, with a lovely warm vintage type tone.

Conn 30M rescue!

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A 1937 Conn 30M that arrived here in two two different boxes will leave in one! This tenor arrived to me as something I had purchased very cheaply on a bit of a lark. It had been disassembled since the ’80s, was probably refinished, and it was not completely certain that all the parts were there. I was hopeful that there would be enough there for me to make a saxophone, and upon opening the boxes and laying everything out, it was clear I had gotten lucky. All the major parts were there. There were many smaller things that were missing, and I did have to break the seal on several sacred secret and holy places in my parts collection- several Perm-Adjust adjustment feet, the special fat 26M/30M rollers that are NOT the same as 6M/10M (and even those are super hard to come by), the weird octave neck screws, tons of tiny 1-64 lock screws, a thumb pearl, pivot screws, a neck screw, a replacement neck tenon and receiver (compliments of Musical Fabrication/Matt Slauson).
And then dent work, and so much cleaning. I think I probably got a cubic inch of red rouge alone off of this thing, to say nothing of the regular grime. And these are challenging horns to work on when they are in excellent condition! This horn ended up being two full weeks of work, and then a bit more I lost track of.
All in all, I broke even. Which is somewhat of a miracle! And I got what I wanted- a horn that probably needed to get very lucky to get put back in circulation for the long-term, me being almost ready for the job at this point in my career, the luck to actually acquire it cheap enough that I could put the work it needed into it, and the right long-term customer to buy it who was willing and excited to let me do my thing. I love that I get to work on such special instruments- whether they are extremely rare or mint condition or collectible or have some sort of special heritage, or a workhorse like this one that found its way back to the sunlight. Time to make music again.

Some interesting Selmer Balanced Action engraving

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Engraving detail on the second Balanced Action alto ever made, and the first one sent to America, meaning it is the first “American Engraved” BA alto. Nice steamship, cool spider! I have not seen those before I don’t think. There are also a few other oddities about this horn that I will cover in detail once the overhaul is done.

Stohrer Sax Shop Companion

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A free, open-source desktop app for saxophone repair shops and saxophonists that I have built with Claude Code. Generates laser-cutting files for the Phil Noy padmaking method, provides reference databases for key heights, serial numbers, and screw specifications, includes tooling generation for pad-making die inserts and holders, a 12-wheel chromatic strobe tuner, and a harmonic tone analyzer for studying your sound. Download links at bottom of the page.

Runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. This page is a condensed version of the full README on GitHub.

Burnished Gold Plate 1931 Conn 6M with Norton Springs!

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

1931 Conn transitional 6M alto saxophone in original burnished gold plate finish, just overhauled by me. The art deco engraving is beautiful, and the CG CONN lettering is a rare style. This is the earliest example of the left-hand bell keys 6M I have ever seen, and shares some unique “features” with the first few hundred like this: a two piece inside neck tenon, odd alternate Eb mechanism on a long rod shared with the alternate G#.

Darts for Pad Backs!

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

No more worrying about bunched up skin on pad backs! Use the “darts” feature on the Stohrer Sax Shop Companion. Darts are customizable in shape, frequency, and at what sizes they are used.

I thought I would be using them mainly for smaller pads, but I’m not really seeing any downside to using them in larger pads.

Edit: I DO NOT WANT A PATENT stop talking about it darts are like a thousand year old idea the only thing that is new is that using a laser cutter means you can easily do it for pads

Free Strobe Tuner

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pssst, hey, you want a free 12 wheel chromatic strobe tuner??

Working on this for next major release of the Sax Shop Companion app. Got it working at 60fps+ and looking really good!

1928 Conn F-Mezzo

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Conn F Mezzo-soprano saxophone, 1928. Original silver plate, just overhauled by me.

This horn smokes. If you want to see it or play it, check out the GetASax booth at NASA later this week.

Flat pads

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pad set! I’m really enjoying learning about pads.

Buffet SDA baritone

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This Buffet Super DynAction baritone wears a rather owlish look, due to a unique upper turn layout.

Worn neck strap ring repair

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Worn neck strap ring repairs are fun when they go well! This was an otherwise excellent original condition Super 20 Silversonic, so a premium was placed on blending it in.

Pad Sets Library

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a reference library for pad set sizes for padmaking.

This library is a work in progress. Pad sizes can vary between individual instruments of the same model, especially across serial number ranges, and of course variations from one to the next as a result of damage or even just variation at the factory is common. Note: not all sets here include octave pad sizes. Use these as a starting point and always verify against the actual instrument. Hopefully if you are making your pads yourself, the pads themselves will be the correct sizes, but note that if you are buying pads elsewhere even if your pad set measurements are correct you will likely find variance in the pad sizes you receive.

F-mezzo oddity!

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Took what I am nearly certain are original pads out of a Conn F-mezzo today for overhaul and the serial under the G# does not match the serial on the body! Felts and corks and everything were correct and matched the original setups I have seen on these in the past. I have done a weirdly high amount of F-mezzo overhauls, but I have never seen this before. Neither serial was on Peter Hurd’s “rare saxophone registry” but is now.

Just finished and up next

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Just finished and up next! 88k alto and 78k Mark VI tenor.

Conn 18M "Stretch" Soprano Saxophones

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Not one but TWO rare Conn 18M “stretch” sopranos, both in rare finishes! One in gold plate, one in nickel. I will let you decide which one is cooler.

The Conn 18M was one of the outputs of the Conn Experimental Laboratory around the same time as the Conn-O-Sax and the F Mezzo-Soprano. The stretch was supposed to be part of Conn’s 1920s major upgrades across the saxophone spectrum, but ended up being part of their failed/abandoned cadre of great but weird horns that include the F-mezzo and Conn-O-Sax. They were made starting in 1928 and quietly and quickly faded out- probably within two years, although as is the case with other horns that fail to sell they trickled out over time long after they ceased production. The “stretch” was as it sounds: longer and skinnier than a normal soprano, with a redesigned bore and scale and keywork aimed at improving both tone and intonation and facility- something they very much achieved, IF you have the right mouthpiece.

SML tenor with no maker's mark

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Doing a PC repair to this SML tenor and the maker’s mark is blank! This must have been on its way to be a stencil and never found a stenciler.

Straight tone holes, 21k serial puts it at 1970.

Key Heights Library

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

NOTE: THIS IS VERY ROUGH AND I WILL CLEAN THIS UP SOON -matt january 2026

This is a reference library of saxophone key heights. Some are from original factory setups, some are heights I have come to prefer that have other provenance. This is not instructions to use these heights for a guaranteed good time- you have to use your ear for that! But hopefully you will find them useful.

Saxophone Serial Number Lookup

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a saxophone serial number lookup tool. Select your manufacturer and enter the serial and get the year it was made. Note: Not all serial number lists are accurate, but we do the best we can. If you see an error, let me know.

Manufacturer Serial Number

Data from Stohrer Sax Shop Companion

Sources
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Serial number data has been compiled and cross-referenced from multiple sources including:

Screw Specs Library

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a reference library of original factory screw and rod thread specifications for vintage saxophones. Having the correct thread pitch is essential when making replacement screws or sourcing parts for repairs and restorations.

This library is a work in progress. I am collecting and verifying data as I research original specifications.

Stohrer Music News, January 2026

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000

I have (with the major help of Claude Code) completely rewritten this site for the static site generator Hugo, and moved hosting. These two changes are major, but completely under the hood. What you should notice is that the site is now much, much faster and hopefully shows up better in searches for sax info. I have added a “new gallery” as well, with images from the past several years.

New Gallery

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

New gallery started in January 2026 alongside a major website rebuild. Click any image to enlarge.

1968 Conn Product Manual

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

1968 Conn Product Manual, scanned in high resolution.

https://www.greenleafcollection.org/research-text/1968-conn-product-manual

1951 King Super 20 Silver Sonic

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

1951 King Super 20 “Silver Sonic” alto saxophone with full pearls, just overhauled by me. Original finish including lacquer over gold inlay engraving on solid silver bell, lacquer over solid silver neck. I did this one with my own handmade pads and flat metal resonators.

Another Super 20 alto

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Just finished up the overhaul on this excellent playing King Super 20 alto from 1953. This one has been refinished at some point in the past, which makes a lot of the work challenging- especially on a Super 20 since the key barrels are solid nickel! Swedging them is a good bit of exercise.

Super 20 puzzle keys

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Super 20 bell keys are just so weird. One of these days, I will reinstall the criss cross applesauce low C# and low B on some of the altos without having to think quite so hard. But not yet.

But wait, what kind of neck is that?

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Pad set cutouts for a Super 20 alto. Felt, card, leather. Neck for scale

Martin Workhorse

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Almost done this old workhorse Martin tenor. I get to work on a lot of extremely good condition horns. But I also get to work on daily drivers, and horns that have seen a lot of use. They are both rewarding in different ways, but there’s something special about these horns with a few miles on them- sometimes, it’s like you can feel the gratitude. A lot of times when you’re working on stuff like this you’ve got something you’re about to do and it can go a lot of different ways on the spectrum between great to not great. The more variables, the more complex the issue, the less likely that great-on-the-first-try result is. But sometimes these horns give that to you every time. You look at something and think oh, this is going to be a journey. And you settle down to start that process and… you get it right on the first try! And you kind of look at the horn and it’s like yeah man, we’re working together on this one. I wanna play.

Tree sax

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I have an old HN White alto (56k serial) in silver hanging on a tree outside my Airstream workshop. I have noticed an uptick in the past few years of people looking to refurb (usually at home as a DIY project) these older HN White horns and I am only sometimes successful at resisting sending people this photo when they ask about them.

Padwork work

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mark VI tenor I just overhauled wearing the pads I make. I am really loving these. I’ve made improving my padwork a major focus over the last 5 or so years and I think I am finally arriving at a place I like. Perhaps time to pick up the overhaul video series where I left off!

Original pads Mark VI

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Original pads, original condition American-assembled 1955 Mark VI tenor saxophone with high F# and original Tonex resonators. Look at that padwork. The horn still plays well!

Other projects- Nixie Clock!

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Finished up the Nixie clock build! I have been wanting to make one of these since 2010 or so. I Made the enclosure on the laser cutter that I use to make pads.

1957 Martin literature

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Booklet from a 1957 Martin “The Martin” tenor saxophone.

Neck fitting example

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

What a little more than half a day of neck fitting a 10M can look like. The left most picture is after everything was cleaned and the initial expansion was done and the first lapping step was done and then the lapping compound cleaned away. You can see the (typical) low spots below and around the neck screw slot in the dull metal.

This is typically caused by overtightening of the neck screw, a problem that typically starts with a loose neck, possibly from a slight pulldown or just time or a bad fit from the factory. The top of the receiver gets tightened too much and ovals out and creates a bulge beneath the slot, and it gets worse over time. In the case of the 10M, I think sometimes this is also caused by the metal end plug tap tap tapping away at the receiver as the horn jostles in its case, and that receiver on the 10M is underbuilt already.

1941 Conn 10M

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This 1941 Conn 10M appears to be in decent shape!

Just overhauled by me with my self-made pads.

Flat pads

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

One of the things I’ve found that I really enjoy about my self-made saxophone pads is that they’re really, really flat. I think that that’s basically what happens when you have an even tension on the skin all around, and it isn’t too tight.

Getting an even tension on the skin is part of the handwork of making the pad, and while it is not difficult to do, it helps to be attentive and have an understanding of seating pads when you are making pads to do them well.

StroboConn journey

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

my intonation journey with the StroboConn is just starting but I can tell it will be of this type

Old documents from Indiana Library

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

some neat old photos at the Indiana Memory site of the Indiana Library. You can search C.G. Conn, Buescher. Martin unfortunately is too generic a name. https://digital.library.in.gov/Search/Results?lookfor=c.g.+conn

SML alto with "permagold" finish

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

SML alto with the “permagold” finish. Not actual gold but instead zinc chromate, and you don’t often see them looking this good!

But what is a StroboConn

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The StroboConn is a super high precision mechanical tuning device that was invented in the 1930s: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2286030A/en

The 12 wheels allow you to see very note at once, so you can see the relative strength and intonation of your harmonics at the same time as your fundamental note.

Production continued through World War 2, as it has industrial uses beyond tuning saxophones.

On that patent, you will see Allen Loomis as an assignee. He was heavily involved in the Conn Experimental Laboratory, and if you click his name you can see he has tons of really interesting saxophone patents.

StroboConn is alive!

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hell yeah got it working!

Stohrer Music News, August 2025

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 14:45:46 +0000

It has been a great year! Very full. I just updated the Index, and there are now 274 videos and articles in there, which is kind of a breathtaking number. I cannot believe I have made that much saxophone content- and that there is still so much more to explore!

Last year, in July 2024, on a road trip with our home-built camper, I visited the Greenleaf Collection at Interlochen Center for the Arts. I met Eileen Ganter, the wonderful person who runs the place. This led to go back in October and working with them to get the collection organized, connect them with repairers, and get things moving there again after many years of stagnation. I got to meet the children of Leland Greenleaf, who remember playing in the Conn factory and watching the Stenberg brothers engrave. The brothers would give them hard candy if they were quiet.

How To Make Saxophone Pads

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 14:37:56 +0000

Some of the first pads I made.

This guide is based on the method generously taught to me by Phil Noy over about 6 months starting in late 2024. We both believe that knowledge like this belongs to all of us, and that by having it out in the open, the saxophone benefits.

Phil’s saxophone pad making method is elegant because you only need one tool: a laser cutter. With this tool you make your pad die holder, your pad dies, and cut all of your materials. It is a brilliant solution to the problem, and combined with the “Stohrer Sax Shop Companion” program I made using a chatbot, the process is both streamlined and accessible while producing a very high quality pad with a total shop footprint of about 3 feet by 3 feet. Startup costs- including the laser cutter, software, acrylic sheet for the dies, and a heap of leather, felt, and card stock- are about $2500 (as of 2025) to produce about $2500 in pads- though of course it takes time to make them. Once the initial investment is made, pads are thereafter quite cheap to make- around 25 cents to 3 dollars apiece depending on size, and you have total control over the end product and will always have pads you like regardless of backorders or government whimsy.

Neck fit (bad) example

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Whoever fit these necks before, I imagine it was like [FREE BIRD GUITAR SOLO FADES IN]

Projects projects projects

Sat, 19 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No, Neo. I’m telling you that when you’ve got enough unfinished projects in your workshop, you won’t need clamps.

Road Trip

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Drove far enough north it was hoodie weather! Home now, 3300 miles completed. Back out on the road in a few days to head to the beach! Then back to work in August.

Silver Plated King Zephyr Special

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Exceptionally rare original silver plated 1941 King Zephyr Special tenor saxophone, just overhauled by me with my own handmade pads. This was a basketcase, believe it or not! Severely bent and dented, rusted solid in most places, it has all new springs, mostly new rods, all new pearl rollers, a tricky but necessary double socket neck fit (tenon was dented too!) and a new lease on life. Most expensive overhaul I have done in about 10 years. Plays fantastic thank goodness! But these always do.

Replacement real pearl rollers

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

All new pearl rollers for this Zephyr Special, whose original rollers were rotted/cracked/discolored from extreme rust on the rods. These were purchased from windplus.net and lightly modified (drilled out a size or two, shortened to fit).

A bit of grumping

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I am convinced that the majority of useful knowledge is locked inside the heads of old people who just don’t want to deal with other people anymore. I really like to share stuff and (try to) help by spreading knowledge, but I am a delicate little butterfly when it comes to how much arguing online annoys me. I used to see videos on youtube and stuff with no commenting allowed and be somewhat annoyed because there can be a lot of useful info in the comments, but I am starting to get it. Those comments were probably heavily trimmed by someone who felt worse for the experience afterwards. I hope my space online remains small enough that I never attract any true trolls, because I am just not built for it and would likely just log off.

Some original factory miscellany

Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was given these recently, and educated opinion seems to be that these are “validated master samples” used to spot check production parts. Buescher soprano G# key and C-soprano high E key.

A visit to Adolphe Sax's grave

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Thank you, Mister Sax! Your invention has given me a life of passion and allows me to provide for my family.

Adolphe Sax’s final resting place in Montmartre. Offerings had been left of flowers, money, and reeds.

Another pup on a Buescher

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Detail of a fully engraved 1927 Buescher True Tone alto in the Greenleaf Collection at Interlochen Center for the Arts. This is like the fourth time I have seen a dog on a fancy Buescher!

Couesnon low A Monopole Conservatoire

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 23:02:29 +0000

Couesnon Monopole II low A alto, original finish, just overhauled by me. The “other” low A alto, and keyed to high G. Plays fantastic, supremely even and in tune, and low Bb sounds like a regular low Bb (unlike Selmer low As, oftentimes). Low A also works with one key, and not at the expense of adding low A once low Bb is already engaged, which is the typical tradeoff with Selmers.

Paul Coats: Runyon Mouthpiece Memories

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 23:31:59 +0000

Note from Matt: Shortly after I posted the JJ Babbitt stuff, I got an email from Paul Coats (formerly of SaxRax, also Runyon, SOTW columnist, and generally a saxophone guy going way back) where he laid out an enormous volume of interesting information from his days at Runyon mouthpieces. Steve Goodson had linked him to my video, and Paul then graciously shared what is obviously only a small portion of his saxophone knowledge with me, and even more graciously has allowed me to reprint it here.

Conn Lead Foil Pads

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 21:46:03 +0000

In the early 1920s, Conn made saxophone pads with a lead foil interior backing to the pad skin. Some of them were marked “Conn-Foil” on the pad, some were not. Some were white with or without a center stitch (no resonator), some were tan with no stitch and no resonator. When handling an original pads Conn saxophone from that era, it is a good idea to handle it carefully until you know for sure- that lead foil has often oxidized and turned to dust, and the pads themselves are often dry rotted. I wear a mask and handle them with gloves whenever I come across them, and continue to wear the mask and gloves until the pads are removed and safely disposed of and the saxophone has been thoroughly cleaned.

J.J. Babbitt Factory Visit

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 14:54:13 +0000

J.J. Babbitt in Elkhart Indiana is one of (the?) world’s oldest and largest mouthpiece makers, and they make Otto Link and Meyer mouthpieces, among many, many others. In July 2024, my family and I took a 3000+ mile road trip, and along the way we drove through Elkhart. Unexpectedly, thanks to Ryan Lillywhite at Conn-Selmer who saw my Facebook photo of my car and our home-built camper in front of the Selmer building, I was able to tour both Conn-Selmer and the J.J. Babbitt factory. The new owner of J.J. Babbitt, Steve Rorie, graciously took over an hour out of his day to show me around.

Kohlert "VKS" Alto Saxophone

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 19:12:35 +0000

(full description coming soon, price includes overhaul/restoration)

Price: $2800

Contact me to purchase or inquire about this horn.

SML "Le Strama" Rev. B Alto Saxophone (like Coleman Hawkins Special)

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 19:06:18 +0000

SOLD

Early SML alto with left hand bell keys, says “Le Strama” on the bell. Looks nearly exactly like the horn they used to make the early “Coleman Hawkins Special” alto- I say nearly exactly because I cannot be certain it is exactly the same, but I do not see any differences myself. These horns are somewhat challenging to work on, but they are some of the only saxophones I have encountered that can even be considered in the same league as a Conn New Wonder I or II for fatness of tone, while also having a certain “French” color to the sound. Super fun to play.

Conn NWII Transitional in Burnished Gold Plate

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 17:56:41 +0000

This is a gorgeous Conn New Wonder series II transitional alto saxophone in an extremely rare finish: burnished gold plate. The engraving is the art-deco style, heavily elaborated for the burnished finish. Only a few of these probably exist; I know of two of them and this is the only one I have overhauled myself. It turned out beautifully. It was a powerful player as you might expect from a Conn of this era, but it also had an incredibly cheerful and nimble alto sound that was unique in my experience with Conns. All it all, it is one of the best altos I have ever played- very hard to put down, and I was genuinely sad to see it go when I was done with it! What a fantastic horn.

Gold Plated King Zephyr Special

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 22:00:43 +0000

My personal alto is a King Zephyr Special, and these horns have a special place in my heart. The craftsmanship is outstanding, the tone is unparalleled, and they are drop-dead gorgeous horns. They play much like a Super 20, but darker. I find the intonation to be particularly excellent, and the sort of zing to the tone that King aficianados seek out is present in abundance.

Typically, King Zephyr Specials are in lacquer, rarely in silver, and only a very few of them were gold plated. I have been lucky enough that this is my second gold plated Zephyr Special to come through the shop, and I actually have a third one scheduled for later this year! I would not be surprised if there were less than a couple dozen of them ever made, but I don’t really have any idea.

Stohrer Music News, October 2022

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 11:04:33 +0000

I have finally overhauled my websites and combined them, and now all of my content lives here in a much simpler format. I prioritized ease of use, quick load times, and a simple design that was inspired by early internet. Still using Wordpress as a site builder, after a dalliance with a simpler but less user-friendly (as far as administration) format called Hugo. This website redesign is now pretty much complete as of this posting. There is even a new logo, adapted from the old Open Source Saxophone Project. Last thing to happen on the backend is migrating to a faster server in the next couple weeks. My website is so old it has been operating on actual hard drives vs. SSDs, and that will change.

Saxophone Repair Information

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 18:07:48 +0000

These sections require tiny bit of explanation. The Index is probably the “easiest” way to browse the entirety of my repair content. This includes everything that used to be on the “Open Source Saxophone Project”.

The Index A comprehensive index all of the saxophone repair information I have created so far, organized by topic. Over 285 videos and articles as of January 2026. Updated as I create more.

Articles and Info This is where my written saxophone repair content goes, arranged in chronological order, as I write it, blog-like. Articles on padwork, saxophone makes & models, guides for tools and saxophones upon which to learn repair, all that stuff is here. To see it organized by topic (probably best), go to the Index which is linked at the bottom of this page. All of the articles from the Open Source Saxophone Project are in here now.

Re-absorbing Open Source Saxophone Project Content

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 15:44:32 +0000

The open source saxophone project ended up being mostly me doing it (although I had some fantastic help with the pivot screw stuff) and it seemed dumb and felt like extra work maintaining two different websites. So I have added everything that was once on the Open Source Saxophone Project to this website, under Sax Repair Info –> Articles and Info. They have their original publishing dates, so most of them are pretty far back (around 2015ish).

Vintage Orsi Contrabass

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 20:45:23 +0000

Well, when I was building a repair shop out of a 31 foot Airstream trailer, I have to admit I did not think of contrabass saxophones. I can comfortably work on everything up to baritone without any issues, and even basses are accounted for by moving my torch holder a foot to the right. Dentwork is possible thanks to a rotating and height adjustable vise stand with carefully considered placement. But the contrabass saxophone is 6 feet, 2 inches tall, weighs close to 50 pounds, and was a challenge to work on in the space. I could do regular work on my secondary bench, which is deep enough and long enough. But dentwork was a non-starter, not just because the metal on this instrument was incredibly thick and resilient, but because it literally wouldn’t fit in my work space.

My Take-Home Tools

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 15:50:00 +0000

Originally written in 2014. I still use basically this same toolset as my take-home tools, but I need to update this article.

Working from home. Regular workshop (Airstream) visible out the window.

Even though I work in a workshop about 50 feet from my front door, sometimes I work from a backup bench in my house- in inclement weather, or perhaps I am feeling lazy. I have an old toolbox where I keep my most-used tools, and over time I have honed it into a fairly complete set of what can get me through 90% or so of my work- once dentwork and cleaning has been taken care of, anyhow. In the event that you find it interesting to know, check through the photos below to see what my personal toolbox contains.

Selmer Super Balanced Action Tenor - Original Gold Plate

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 01:51:28 +0000

On the bench this week is an extremely rare original burnished gold plate Selmer Super Action tenor from 1953/54. Amazingly, this horn spent most of its life nearby to my shop in semi-rural North Carolina, being owned by a player in Hillsborough who had ties to a local music store here. This history makes sense, as it was both extensively played and well-cared for. It had a lot of miles, but it was loved.

Stohrer Music News - Late 2021

Thu, 04 Nov 2021 16:09:33 +0000

First things first: I continue to be extremely lucky and am booked for the foreseeable future. I am not currently accepting new clients, and I will post a news item if that changes.

Well gosh darn that was a hell of a year, or hundred years, or whatever that was. My wrist is mostly healed (still a few more months to go before my last follow-up) and functionality is quite acceptable, I am vaccinated, my kids are getting vaccinated in a few days, I’ve signed another long lease at my current home/workshop- it feels like a new chapter.

Index of Saxophone Repair Content

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 21:32:53 +0000

— expand all sections to search the whole page with Ctrl-F / ⌘-F

About This Index

Index of all saxophone repair material created by Matt Stohrer, 2007-present. Last updated 7/1/26.

This is an index of all of the educational content I have created so far about saxophone repair. It is updated as I create new material. Some are articles, some are videos. Some are broadly applicable repair topics (example: how to seat pads), some are make or model specific (example: Conn locking screws), some are philosophical (example: The Unprofitable Valley). As of July 2026, there are 290 articles and videos in the index.

(sold) 1933 Conn 6M Transitional Alto Saxophone

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 10:15:00 +0000

SOLD

This saxophone (and another like it that I didn’t even have a chance to post to the site) sold in August of 2021. If you are interested in acquiring one like it, let me know. I enjoy putting good 6Ms into player’s hands.

(Original description below)

This is a ready to play 1933 Conn 6M Transitional alto saxophone in very clean original condition, with original lacquer (one of the first lacquer horns Conn sold!) at about 98%. This has been my personal horn recently, but unfortunately medical expenses mean I need to sell. I performed a full mechanical overhaul on this a few years ago with flat metal resonators, and I recently did a very thorough clean-oil-adjust, and it has been taken care of very well. It also comes with its original case in exceptionally fine condition- so nice you can definitely use the original case as your daily case for this horn- and also the original neckstrap and Conn pad measuring tool. It is a fantastic alto that plays with crisp and instant response and a warm, round tone that is ready to play for many years out of the case.

Yanagisawa 991 alto in black lacquer

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 01:14:40 +0000

Yanagisawa 990 with black lacquer and the sterling/gold plated neck. I spent a lot of time on minor but evenly distributed key fitting and adjustment material upgrades during this overhaul and I am especially pleased with the feel of the action. Absolutely quiet, snappy, light, obscenely quick and comfortable. A joy to play.

1967 Selmer Mark VI Tenor

Sat, 10 Apr 2021 01:35:00 +0000

On the bench.

1967 Selmer Mark VI tenor, original lacquer, fresh overhaul done by me. I was about 80% through this when I shattered my wrist. Done! This was for a client who I first met in my early days in New York City about 15 years ago. I have had a few of those in a row recently, and it has been nice to reconnect.

Back to work after wrist surgery!

Fri, 05 Mar 2021 01:40:17 +0000

March 5th, 2021- Just short of 6 weeks after my wrist surgery. I am a little slow, a little limited, but I am making a start. Been working my P.T. hard and nearly constantly.

A little bit of physical therapy

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 01:45:00 +0000

I have been encouraged to move my wrist if I can, and I am taking that to heart. I learned to reface mouthpieces a long time ago, and I am dusting off the old memory banks and polishing up my skills, since most of it is done with the right hand.

Broken Wrist!

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:54:00 +0000

In mid-January 2021, I sustained a crushing injury to my left wrist and badly shattered it. I got very lucky considering the nature of the accident that I was not injured much more severely, and I am happy to report that surgery went well (there was worry I would need a much more invasive surgery with a much longer recovery time involving a second surgery down the road but it went about as well as possible) and a near-full recovery of wrist motion and strength is expected by a year from injury date. I of course hope to beat that timeline, and will be working my physical therapy as hard as I am allowed.

Pre-war Conn 10M

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 01:56:00 +0000

Spent a while trying to track down a rattling noise on this 1937 Conn 10M overhaul I just completed and finally figured out it was the window in front of me! These are such fantastic horns.

A shot of the keys and pad seats during the overhaul. I’ve started doing a bit more disassembly after padwork in my overhauls- to make other things more accessible, to trim adjustment materials to perfection, to get difficult key groups done while I am fresh in the AM, etc- and I am enjoying what I am learning as a result. It is also nice to tetris the last chunk of an overhaul by simply adding oil and assembling since the padwork and adjustment materials are already done.

I'm back!

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 01:45:43 +0000

It is November 2020, and I am back to saxophone repair after a year-long sabbatical with a renewed passion. I was lucky to have the time away so I could see how truly lucky I am to have this job. Contact me to schedule an overhaul, which is mostly what I am doing these days since shipping costs make less-than-overhaul work less feasible for folks who aren’t local.

Update January 2026: This website has been rebuilt! All content from opensourcesaxophoneproject.com has been merged here, and we’ve moved to a new foundation that is not WordPress.

Stohrer Music News: June 2019

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 14:37:11 +0000

Howdy! It has been a while. I am still here, still working full time+ on basically only the best saxophones for super awesome people, and still booked solid. I’ve been busy at work but also busy with life: I’ve traveled a few times, fixed a couple of cars, fixed up an old tractor I found, created a community garden on my land, and cleared a lot of old overgrown pasture with the aforementioned tractor. And all the while raising my two kids half the time- and its been an absolute blast. But I have let the website languish in the meantime, and that is something that needs corrected soon.

Selmer Super (Balanced) Action Tenor

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 03:08:36 +0000

This horn came to me after having lived as a wall decoration for several decades. It was completely rusted and seized up in a way that I have only seen in other saxes that were exposed to the weather or submerged at one point. The kicker was it had original pads in it, so it was pristine when it got hung up- and in the before pictures, you can see a lot of the original lacquer, though so damaged by corrosion and exposure your hands would come away brown when handling it.

End of 2017 catch-up post

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 02:41:16 +0000

It has been a hell of a year. Stayed really busy, and remembered to take a few photos of some of the stuff that came across my bench. I saw an unusual number of early Mark VIs, Conn 30Ms, Conn 26Ms, and original pads horns of all types, and several horns I had never had the opportunity to work on before. Really amazing year, workwise, and I feel like I am finally getting decent at this job, 15 years in.

The Open Source Saxophone Project

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 22:35:02 +0000

The Open Source Saxophone Project was my other website dedicated to technical information about the saxophone and saxophone repair. As of January 2026, all of that content has been merged into this website.

You can find all of my saxophone repair content organized by topic in the Index.

There are Tool Guides

There are Repair Guides throughout the Articles section

All of the saxophone repair videos are on my YouTube Channel

Stohrer Music News, Late 2017 Edition

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 02:10:53 +0000

Charlie Ventura’s personal gold plated King Super 20 tenor was a fun project from this past year.

Man, where to begin? I’ve been putting this off for too long, so what the hell, I’ll just write it and post it.

Well, an awful lot has happened in my little corner of the world in the past year, and updates to this site and my YouTube channel have been slow as I focused on getting my work done in a (mostly) timely manner, continuing to improve my craft, nurture my passion for the job, and work through one of the most difficult shitty-personal-stuff years I have had. In fact, I would say the amount of stuff that was going on on my websites (here and opensourcesaxophoneproject.com) and my YouTube channel was inversely proportional to how much challenging crap was going on with me personally.

New Horn Setup Procedure

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 19:02:41 +0000

Repair Procedures- New Saxophone Setup

(Note: When I briefly sold new saxophones, this was standard for every new saxophone I sold and was included in the price, but if you have a new saxophone you have bought elsewhere you can have me perform this service on your horn. Contact me for a rough estimate based on make/model.)

My procedure for setting up new saxophones is extremely thorough and makes a huge difference in how the horn feels and plays. This is the setup procedure that I would give my own saxophone.

For Sale: 1926 Conn New Wonder II Alto Saxophone, Burnished Gold Plate

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 18:37:01 +0000

SOLD/TRADED

Here is a beautiful piece of American craftsmanship from 1926, a Conn New Wonder Series II alto saxophone in burnished gold plate with elaborate engraving.

Let’s just get down to the nuts and bolts here: when I am done restoring this horn, this will be a stunningly beautiful alto with power and richness of tone that is hard to find anywhere else. I am not prone to superlatives, but I would go before a jury and win in defense of the statement: Conns from the 1920s have the biggest tone of any saxophone ever made.

Handmade in Wherever

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 17:03:40 +0000

#

A saxophone should be clear about its origin.
#

Note: this article rant is directed at new or inexperienced players who haven’t been around the saxophone scene very long. It is also just like, my opinion, man.

Early 2017 Catch-Up Post

Sat, 11 Mar 2017 03:46:15 +0000

I had a rough patch in my personal life last year (doing better now) and had not put a post here in a while. Here are a few random selections from what has been on my bench in the past few months. Click to enlarge.

Nearly immaculate Selmer Radio Improved tenor. This one came to me wearing original pads, which is the first time I have seen that on a Radio Improved.

Nothing Here At The Moment

Sat, 11 Mar 2017 03:09:14 +0000

Nothing for sale in this category at the moment!

If you have a particular saxophone you are looking for, you can try my Find-A-Sax service.

1927 Martin Handcraft Soprano Saxophone, Gold Plate

Tue, 08 Nov 2016 20:19:00 +0000

This was a beast of an overhaul. This beautiful gold-plated saxophone originally had the Martin “Neverleek” pad system, which was a gimbaled pad that consisted of a very large dome hard-soldered in the key cup, with a very thin metal-backed pad that was lightly screwed into the dome to allow it to gimbal around to seal on the tonehole. Typically, you would expect that if someone were to install regular pads on a Martin that originally had the Neverleek pad system in it, they would remove the domes first.

Nobody Was Here

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 20:41:18 +0000

I strive in my job to be invisible. I figure these instruments will be around for 200-300 years, the guys who designed them were smarter than me, and when in proper operating condition they work extremely well. I try to make them to where the designer could look at it all these years on (most of the instruments I work on are 50-90 years old) and see my restorations and say “yes, exactly, that is how we meant it.". Before the cost-cutting measures, before the rushed assembly line at the factory, there was a perfect ideal of the instrument in the designers head. I want to take it back there. When I’m done, I want it to look like it was born that way. Who did this work? Nobody.

I Timed a Saxophone Overhaul

Wed, 14 Sep 2016 01:18:36 +0000

Been working on it for a little while and finally had a horn (the Conn 6M pictured above) that had the perfect situation to allow me to record a baseline overhaul time on a horn that is in excellent condition to start with. I have subtracted the time spent polishing, since that is not “baseline”, as well as smoothed out the numbers here and there to try to make it more “average” by accounting for a few things that went easier than normal, and a few things that took more time than normal.

A Possibly Wrong Primer on Engraving

Mon, 18 Jul 2016 04:08:27 +0000

Absent much other information freely available on the web, here is

A Possibly Wrong Primer on Musical Instrument Engraving
#

I say possibly wrong because it is written by myself (introduction) and my partner at the time Bianca (the more helpful bit with tool links), and between the two of us we barely constitute an amateur at the craft/art of musical instrument engraving. So proceed at your own risk. If you do not believe as I do that some information (even if partially wrong) is better than no information, stop reading now and feel free to get upset.

Saxophone Hinge Tube Bushing

Thu, 09 Jun 2016 12:49:24 +0000

This is an advanced repair that can be undertaken when a hinge tube in a saxophone (or other similar musical instrument) has been so worn or has so little expose hinge tube that normal swedging will not fix poor key fit.

The pictures and text for this article have been graciously provided by Larry Gerhardt of Gerhardt Music in Saint Joseph Missouri.

This is a detailed but still rough outline of the procedure, and to undertake this repair you should already be an accomplished repairer with a lot of experience with key fitting- otherwise you will not understand the implied parts that have been left out such as rod making, hinge tube facing, etc.

Buffet Super Dynaction Tenor Saxophone

Fri, 20 May 2016 15:15:28 +0000

This was a very clean Buffet SDA tenor that sported what some folks call “sparkle lacquer”, although for me the jury is still out on whether that is a real thing or not.

(It looks like crazing close up, and I’ve been told by folks who bought theirs new that it developed over a few years after ownership)

Either way, this horn is gorgeous, and you can see the sparkley effect on this particular sax in this video:

Martin "The Music Man" Committee Tenor Saxophone

Fri, 20 May 2016 15:00:19 +0000

Fairly standard overhaul done on this beauty. I used flat metal resonators. These like thin pads- you’ll be using minimal adhesive as well to get them as thin as the horn wants (assuming key geometry hasn’t been bent all around in the past to accommodate thicker pads).

Cool horn. I like the woody tone of “The Martin” saxophones.

Solid Sterling Silver Selmer Series III alto saxophone

Fri, 20 May 2016 14:39:31 +0000

Solid sterling silver Selmer Series III alto, full mechanical overhaul. This one was a doozy!

While it arrived playing decently, it just played dead and stuffy all around, with no clear culprit. In fact, the owner (an extremely accomplished classical player) had been chasing this problem for a couple years, and was growing frustrated that although a lot of money had been poured into the horn, it never played as well as it did when he first bought it. Although I suspected the pads, which were kangaroo skin and in my experience porous and deadening, I advised against an overhaul since I couldn’t guarantee an outcome and it had been relatively recently overhauled elsewhere (with regular checkups since), but despite my grumpiness and overall lack of proper business demeanor, an overhaul was decided upon and performed.

Selmer "New Largebore" Soprano Saxophone with Unusual Engraving

Fri, 11 Mar 2016 01:36:04 +0000

This unique horn was made in 1929 during the time period that the “New Largebore” Selmer was being made, but sat unfinished and unsold at the factory until the late 1930s, when it was finished, given a contemporary engraving pattern of the Balanced Action, and sold. Thus the engraving is out-of-time, but completely original.

I was instructed to do a job similar to the Balanced Action tenor I did recently- spare no expense and leave no stone unturned mechanically, but try to leave the horn looking and feeling old and “played-in”. Doing so ended up being one of the bigger jobs I’ve done!

Selmer Balanced Action Baritone Saxophone, All Original

Fri, 11 Mar 2016 00:42:59 +0000

I actually did very little to this horn- just a few adjustments here and there to improve its playability on its original pads. Yes, you read that right- improve playability on its original pads. And it plays very well. You can tell its a bit leaky, but it plays down to low Bb without much problem and feels pretty good under the fingers. I really enjoy seeing original pads horns because typically there are many layers of work between me and the original master craftsmen that made these things, and a horn like this is when the veil between my world and theirs is thinnest. I am lucky to see original setup horns several times a year, and I have learned an awful lot by spending time with them.

Selmer Balanced Action Tenor Saxophone

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 21:40:06 +0000

This is a Selmer Balanced Action tenor saxophone from 1939. This horn had a single owner, a man named Jennings Titus, who bought it new in 1940. Shortly after purchasing, he enlisted in the Army, and he played in military bands all over Europe during World War II. When he flew from place to place, he would send the horn with the officers since there was a lot more room in the officers plane, and he himself would fly with the rest of the enlisted bandsmen. His plane was shot down, but the officer’s plane was unhurt, and he spent the rest of the war in a POW camp while his horn was sent home to his parents. After the war, he reunited with his family and his horn, and played it for the rest of his life. Several years after his death, his daughter brought it to me to fix the old girl up, and I’m happy to say that this ended up being an absolutely beautiful horn that plays every bit as good as it looks. Every once in a while, you come across a Selmer that can give a Conn a run for its money in the big tone department, and this horn happens to be one.

Selmer Radio Improved Alto Saxophone, Burnished Gold Plate

Fri, 12 Feb 2016 00:07:14 +0000

This is a Selmer Radio Improved model alto saxophone in burnished gold plate with the American style engraving. This is one of probably between two and five saxophones of this model ever made with this finish and engraving pattern, and likely the only saxophone with this exact engraving scene as they were typically a little different from one to the next.

The burnished finish is different from regular gold plate, and was typically the absolute top-of-the-line finish from any saxophone maker. It involved hours of hand-burnishing (polishing by rubbing it with a very very smooth and hard piece of metal or sometimes a mineral. Pretty interesting stuff, look it up!) and the plating is typically much thicker than a normal gold plate finish.

1950 King Super 20 Alto

Fri, 29 Jan 2016 16:06:36 +0000

This horn was for sale here on my website, and was bought and overhauled to the new owners specifications (flat metal resonators, which I like on Kings) and it is now heading to its new home. I did a full mechanical rebuild on this horn, which on a King can be a bit time consuming due to the nickel-silver keywork (which is a harder metal than brass and thus more challenging to refit) and the complexity of said keywork.

Evaluating a Used Saxophone for Purchase

Sat, 02 Jan 2016 05:31:50 +0000

This is a video I made, but in case you can’t watch it, I have provided the script below. I ad-libbed quite a few additional things for the video and obviously illustrated the things I talked about, so I would encourage you to watch it if you can, but if not the text below will still be useful to you.

How To Install And Seat Saxophone Pads

Wed, 30 Dec 2015 18:26:31 +0000

This article is designed to give you some background on how installing saxophone pads can work. If you are learning repair, this can help teach you how to do it. If you are an interested consumer, this can teach you a bit about why replacing a pad isn’t cheap when its done well and how to understand what you are seeing in your own saxophone.

Saxophone padwork is a huge subject, and I am constantly amazed by a few things I notice in my job:

Saxophone Part Nomenclature

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 18:50:09 +0000

Note: This article was originally published with photos of each part on a Selmer Balanced Action tenor. The photos were lost during a website migration and I am working on replacing them. The text descriptions remain intact.

Naming saxophone parts, like much of the repair business, can differ depending on who is doing it. The guide I have provided here is what I have learned/decided to call the parts, and may be different from what you like to use or have heard used. But since there doesn’t seem to be a reliable and agreed-upon standard publicly posted elsewhere that is widely known, I’ll just put this here and maybe folks will use it.

The Disclaimer

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 18:47:18 +0000

As I am fond of saying, there are almost as many ways to do this job right as there are to do it wrong.

Use this information wisely. Do not learn repairs on a great saxophone. The great saxophones of today and in particular yesteryear are singular and irreplaceable, and properly cared for will last for 200-300 years. This means they belong mostly to future generations, since the majority of their useful life lays ahead of them. We are **stewards **of these instruments, not owners, and you owe it to the future generations yet to come to err on the side of preservation, always.

Saxophones On Which To Learn Repair

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 16:14:41 +0000

First things first: DO NOT LEARN TO REPAIR ON A GREAT SAXOPHONE. The great saxophones of today and in particular yesteryear are singular and irreplaceable, and properly cared for will last for 200-300 years. This means they belong mostly to future generations, since the majority of their useful life lays ahead of them. We are stewards of these instruments, not owners, and you owe it to the future generations yet to come to err on the side of preservation, always.

Crowdfunded Content Blitz

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 18:17:42 +0000

In August 2015, I took a flyer and put up a crowdfunding campaign to buy me some time off regular (paying) work to spend some time working on the content that I am making for this website- videos, articles, etc. It went better than I expected, and I am spending about half of the month of December working solely on my educational content here and on YouTube- and of course the YouTube content will be used here.

Tools: Level Two

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 01:22:42 +0000

Tools: Level 2 Basic overhaul of your own saxophone (minor mechanical work) These are the tools (in addition to all of the tools and supplies from Level One) that you can expect to use if you are going to perform a disassembly, cleaning, and full repad/basic overhaul of your own saxophone(s). The cost represented here is about $2000-4000, depending on how complete you make your set (one parallel plier vs. a selection of 5 different ones, for instance), bringing the total investment so far including level 1 tools to over $3000 at a minimum.

Build A Saxophone Repair Workbench

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 01:21:21 +0000

Your work area is the literal foundation for your saxophone repair, and as such it needs to be stable, level, sturdy, and clean. It can be simple or complex, but it must always be well thought-out. Remember that your work will reflect its origins.

The following are my recommendations based on my experiences, obviously you must find the best way to work for you. There are no specific dimensions or step-by-step instructions here, only recommendations and tips to figure out your own customized needs so that YOU can make the dimensions. Because honestly if you can’t build the underlying bench itself- which is quite simple- without instructions, you probably can’t figure out what is going to lay on top of it when you are done.

Tools: Level One

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 01:19:17 +0000

Tools: Level One
#

Learning to Do It Yourself Regular Maintenance and Minor Repairs On Your Own Saxophone Before using the information presented here, please read this.

These are the basic tools you will want to do maintenance and minor repairs on a saxophone between major servicings as detailed in the Level 1 Guides. Of course, nobody ever complained they had too many tools, so consider this list as a basis for later expansion.

King Super 20 Alto Saxophone, Full Pearls

Sat, 28 Nov 2015 01:56:35 +0000

SOLD

This is a 1950 King Super 20 alto saxophone in original lacquer with its original case, currently undergoing a full mechanical rebuild by me. It is in very good physical condition, and the particular variety of this horn can be classified either as a “Series 1A” or a “Series I transitional”, with the very first of the “modern” style left hand pinky table, which in my opinion was the best mechanical design of the “modern” style left hand pinky table that King made with the Super 20. This horn has a slightly darker sound than the later Super 20s, but still very punchy and round with plenty of that King zing that makes these horns famous.

Selmer "Dorsey Model" Alto Saxophone

Sat, 28 Nov 2015 01:15:29 +0000

Well here is a horn you don’t see every day. This is a Selmer “Dorsey Model” alto saxophone in what I believe to be a very old factory relacquer- though done extremely well and color-correct so most folks wouldn’t be able to tell, and even a few professionals might be fooled.

It also sports its original case, which is just beautiful.

The “Dorsey Model” was a special edition, made in extremely low numbers concurrently with the Balanced Action model. The story goes that Jimmy Dorsey liked the feel of the Radio Improved keywork (left hand bell keys and old style left hand pinky table) that they made a special run of horns that are basically Balanced Action body tubes and necks with Radio Improved bells, left hand pinky tables, and bell-to-body braces.

Selmer Super Sax "Cigar Cutter" Alto Saxophone, Gold Plate

Sat, 28 Nov 2015 00:36:31 +0000

This is a drop-dead gorgeous example of a Selmer Super Sax made in 1931, wearing its original gold plate. It sports the “cigar cutter” octave mechanism, which to my view is unimportant enough that I forgot to photograph it. What is important is the year and the model- to my mind, the Super is the first Selmer that sounds and feels like a Selmer, and might even be my favorite series of Selmer saxophones. And whether a Selmer Super Sax sports the “cigar cutter” octave mechanism (which is an applied name and not official, merely a nickname based upon a shape in the octave mechanism of the early Supers) or not, a Selmer Super is a great saxophone.

Mark VI Tenor: "Player's Horn"

Wed, 11 Nov 2015 16:12:05 +0000

This is a 1968 Selmer Mark VI, which arrived to me extremely worn out and so covered in green corrosion it felt soft to the touch. I often kick myself for not taking “before” photos (I get too excited for disassembly and forget) but this time I really should have. Just to give you an idea, this horn had been played for several hours a day since bought used in 1983 and hadn’t ever gotten a real overhaul- and was never swabbed. It had also recently been dropped. When the owner asked a friend of mine- and saxophone expert- what he should do with it, my friend said “sell it”.

1920s Conn Alto and Curved Soprano - Early New Wonder Series II

Tue, 15 Sep 2015 15:36:17 +0000

I think my camera is dying. My trusty Sony RX-100 (first edition) is finally giving up the ghost. Photos have become difficult to focus and seem to lack detail, but a few photos still come through now and then. So I took approximately a billion photographs to bring you a few of this beautiful pair of Jazz-age Conns, both in original finish and both freshly overhauled. (this is also why this section is sparse lately- I need a new camera or to get mine repaired)

Stohrer Music News, Introspection 2015 Edition

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 18:15:11 +0000

(Edit, December 2015. Waitlist was opened for a while and is now closed again until 2017 at least. That was fast! But since I work slow, it doesn’t take a whole lot to keep me busy. Read on though, because the majority of this post talks about a change in my repair philosophy and how I charge that is important.)

Now that I am coming to the end of my waitlist- and therefore, to things agreed-upon with customers up to two years ago- some changes are afoot here at Stohrer Music, and I want to tell you what they are and why I am making them.

On The Bench: Selmer Super Action Tenor Saxophone

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 16:38:26 +0000

This is a 1952 Selmer Super (Balanced) Action tenor saxophone in somewhat funny-looking original lacquer, in excellent physical condition; an original un-engraved “Euro horn”.

Back when this horn was made, to avoid import taxes for horns sold in the US market, Selmer Paris sent saxophones in parts to Selmer USA (which is an entirely different company, google that to have some fun because they don’t even really like each other at this point) who assembled, engraved, and lacquered them. The engraving patterns that the engravers used in the US and in France were different and thus the original market place is fairly easy to figure. And for some periods in the 1950s and perhaps later, some European market Selmers were entirely un-engraved. I have heard a story that the simple reason behind this is that that the engraver for Selmer in France at the time was periodically ill, and took large swathes of time off, during which saxophones went out the door without any engraving. I do not know the veracity of this statement, but its an interesting idea to ponder and yet another example (if true) of how the lore behind saxophones can be overcomplicated, and serious differences from one horn to the next can have rather pedestrian origin.

On The Bench: Yamaha YTS-32 Tenor Saxophone

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 15:51:52 +0000

This is a Yamaha YTS-32, which is basically a Yamaha YTS-52 for the European market. Originally marketed as an intermediate horn, much like the Yamaha YSS-475 intermediate soprano it is actually every bit as professional in playing as its big brother, the 62, with the only notable subtractions to my mind (though there are quite a few differences) being the lack of engraving and plastic key touches rather than genuine pearl. But in playing, this is a really great saxophone.

On The Bench: Conn Virtuoso Deluxe Soprano Saxophone

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:03:58 +0000

This is a 1926 Conn New Wonder Series II soprano saxophone in the extremely rare finish option known as “Virtuoso Deluxe”. Heavily gold plated and hand burnished, hand-crafted pearl inlay on every key, and elaborate engraving that typically covers the entire horn. On this particular example, there is a dragon-slaying scene (apparently used more than once on Virtuoso Deluxe sopranos of the same era, see here and here) where the dragon and the dragon-slayer are highlighted in silver.

On The Bench: King Zephyr Special Tenor

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 17:17:44 +0000

This is an original lacquer King Zephyr Special tenor from 1938. I overhauled it with reusable brass resonators from Tenor Madness, and I am about as pleased with my padwork on this one as I ever get. The horn came out really, really great and it is so beautiful to look at. I learned a tiny bit more about photography (I use a point-and-shoot and make it a point to never edit) and tweaked the aperture settings just to get some photos of the engraving that do it justice. So yeah, sorry about the artsy photos but I just learned how to F-stop and I can’t really control myself.

On The Bench: King Zephyr Special Alto w/ Unique Engraving

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 15:35:05 +0000

This is the earliest King Zephyr Special saxophone that I have seen or heard of, and it predates the known serial number lists for the model number by about 7,000 serials. I own a Zephyr Special alto from what seems to be the first big batch of them, a 209xxx instrument. This one is 202xxx, and has several differences from every other Zephyr Special I have seen so far:

different engraving for the KING logo, more like what you’d see on a King trumpet of the same era - Eb and C key touchpieces are solid nickel
different, larger bow guard more like the bow guard on Zephyr Special tenors
hard rubber rather than pearl rollers on the actuating arms for the low Bb/B

Other than that, the horn feels and plays the same, which is to say one of the best saxophones ever made. I playtested this one thoroughly :-) and it is nearly identical to my 209xxx horn, with the only differences I felt (mine is ever so slightly more even, this one is slightly more powerful) being easily attributable to them just being different saxophones made on different days and also the differences in resonator choice- mine has flats, this one has slight domes.

Now Available to Be Indexed

Fri, 29 May 2015 01:22:32 +0000

I had this site set up so that it was not showing up in search engines. I just disabled that, so now that some people might actually see this maybe I’ll get off my butt and add some stuff. I just need to find the time!

This site is MAJORLY under construction. Since I worked on it last, how I think this site might eventually work has changed, though the idea and the information I want to present has stayed the same. And finding active collaborators has not gone well, so I might need to change the tagline!

On The Bench: Conn Transitional Tenor - Split Bell Keys With "Naked Lady" Engraving

Wed, 20 May 2015 14:56:18 +0000

You just can’t beat a 1920s-1930s Conn for hugeness of tone.

This was a very clean Conn transitional tenor saxophone which I fully repadded. This is a less commonly seen variant with split bell keys and the “naked lady” engraving, which only appeared in this configuration on tenor. By the time the “naked lady” engraving appeared on altos, the keywork had been changed over to be basically identical to the eventual 6M model and the bell keys were both on the left. But on the tenor, for a very short period of time the engraving had already changed but the keywork remained mostly in the style of the New Wonder Series II.

SML Standard Tenor

Wed, 20 May 2015 14:44:05 +0000

This horn is identical to the never-sold SML “Lucerne” stencil I did a while back, and is basically a SML Gold Medal without all the bells and whistles like locking neck ring, rolled toneholes, adjustment screws, and adjustable bumper felts on the keyguards.

This was a major overhaul, including manufacturing a replacement neck tenon and tenon receiver and doing some brazing on the neck and body tube where the seams had separated. This was in addition to a lot of dents and corrosion and soldering and poorly done past dentwork and then of course a full mechanical rebuild of the keywork.

Wartime Conn 6M & 10M

Mon, 18 May 2015 13:51:58 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to overhaul two Conn saxophones built during World War II. To understand why this is unusual and pretty cool, some background is helpful.

In the lead-up to American military involvement in World War II, the materials necessary to make saxophones such as brass, steel, and cork became harder and harder to come by for non-war related items, and eventually in 1942 the US Government passed restrictive measure L-37 (and its companion L-37a), which limited such war-critical materials to no more than 10% by weight of any given manufactured item. This means that unless there was a special exception (for instance military instruments), production of saxophones at the American saxophone companies came to a complete halt and the precision machinery and trained workers at the saxophone factories were converted to war-related production. Conn, for instance, made altimeters which you can often find on eBay. Holton made fuses.

Buffet Super Dynaction Tenor

Fri, 10 Apr 2015 02:58:49 +0000

This was an early Buffet Super Dynaction tenor saxophone that was in extremely good physical condition. Only a bit of mechanical work needed done, and that which was done was done with an eye towards improving the mechanism while maintaining the excellent condition original lacquer- which was all the more delicate due to the crazing that some call “sparkle lacquer”. In fact, “sparkle lacquer” is just a period of time in Buffet’s saxophone-making history when their lacquering was not quite up to par, and whether through imperfect drying or incorrect thinning, the lacquer layers (lacquer is sprayed in several coats) dried in such a way that one or more of the layers shrank while drying, created a crazed effect much like can be seen on some pottery or on dried lake beds.

SML Gold Medal II Stencil Tenor Saxophone, Never Played

Thu, 26 Mar 2015 01:11:48 +0000

I am very lucky to work on quite a few extremely clean and good condition horns, including perhaps a dozen or so a year that are still wearing their original pads. Given that most of what the repairer of a vintage saxophone is dealing with is the effects and ravages of time, wear and tear, and (I’m sorry to say it) the big one: past repairs, it is quite nice to work on a horn where I am closer to the factory intent from the start. But even in my strange corner of the saxophone world it is worthy of note when I get to work on a horn that is truly New Old Stock- that is, a horn that was never sold in the first place.

Selmer Radio Improved Baritone Saxophone (After)

Thu, 26 Mar 2015 00:45:41 +0000

So this horn ended up being quite challenging and quite rewarding. It was an awful lot of work, but at the end of it all, out came a truly excellent playing baritone. The action was light and fast and easy, the intonation was pretty good, the tone was excellent and the horn was a lot of fun to play. On any horn this is a good result- especially a baritone pushing 80 years old, but on a saxophone of this level of rarity (less than two dozen of this type were ever made), it was quite a rush to put a mouthpiece on it and be greeted with not only a work of art but just a damn great horn.

Stohrer Music News, Relocation Edition

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 01:49:03 +0000

Short version: We’ve moved! Still living just outside Durham, NC.

Long version:

We made it!

The old place, 24 hours before the movers were supposed to show up. This might not be a big deal up in Boston, but here in North Carolina this might as well be four feet of snow. Everything was shut down.

Selmer "Radio Improved" Transitional Baritone Full Overhaul - Before

Sat, 21 Feb 2015 19:33:13 +0000

This is going to be a big job! Although this horn is fairly clean physically, there are a few major trouble spots that will provide me with some difficult challenges.

There are probably less of these horns in existence than I could count on two hands, so I’m pretty excited to work on it. I’ve been asked to try to avoid any soldering work- including unsoldering the upper bow, which would make the major dentwork necessary in that area a lot easier- so this will be quite a challenge. I also expect an awful lot of rusted out and stuck screws, rollers, springs… now that I think of it, there are a lot of pitfalls in this job, and its probably rather foolhardy of me to post “before” pictures publicly before I get through the unseen gremlins and hit bedrock. Ah well, further incentive to not **** it up.

338xxx King Super 20 Alto Repad

Sat, 21 Feb 2015 19:03:23 +0000

This was one of those jobs where everything went my way. There is an awful lot in the job of saxophone repair- and probably any job that requires working with aged mechanisms and variable materials- where a certain amount of it just depends on which way the wind blows. You could get a pad seated perfectly on the first try, or you could just as easily need to try 3 different pads and spend an hour before it came out right. Sometimes you can get an octave mechanism sorted out in an hour, sometimes it takes all morning.

Otto Link (The Man Himself) Refacing Article, 1950

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 01:02:21 +0000

This is a short article from the summer 1950 edition of “The Clarinet”, featuring the actual Otto Link talking about his refacing process.

I have an old Otto Link ad for refacing services published at about the same time- the cost to reface a mouthpiece was $3. Of course, “refacing” in this sense is just plugging a mouthpiece into the Link facing machine, rather than the hand-finishing and repair that we think of today as refacing, but still- $3 to put an actual vintage Link facing on a piece isn’t bad!

Stohrer Music News, December 2014

Tue, 02 Dec 2014 02:50:53 +0000

Black Friday madness here at Stohrer Music

Stohrer Music News, December 2014

Thanks for stopping by! A few things of note are going on around here:

1. I installed a wood stove in my Airstream workshop (see the smoke in the photo above? Wood heat!) and its keeping me nice and warm this winter for just about zero cost since we live in the woods. Yep, that’s my workshop. I’ll update the gallery page soon with photos from the wood stove installation. I’m pretty pumped about it, because going on electric heat last year was both expensive and on the coldest days insufficient! Yes, I have a carbon monoxide detector, and since travel trailers like my workshop are naturally drafty (airtight trailer will kill you), my reading is steady at zero, so don’t worry about me! Just be glad I’m going to be warm this winter, unlike the last.

How To Say "Buescher"

Sun, 07 Sep 2014 18:00:10 +0000

How to pronounce the name of the Buescher Band Instrument Company (named after the founder, Gus Buescher) is something that comes up frequently among folks such as myself- saxophone geeks who also like to get things right- and while the story is a little complex, there is what I think is a “right” way to say it.

I happen to have a Buescher ad from the 1940s hanging on the wall above my workbench. Read what it says:

A 3-D Printed Saxophone

Thu, 31 Jul 2014 14:25:26 +0000

Olaf Diegal, a professor of product development at the Lund Universty, has created a partially playable saxophone through additive manufacturing- also known as 3-D printing. Read my short commentary below.

While I think this is quite promising and I am zero percent surprised having followed 3D printing for a while now (note that article is from 2010), I also think that it will be a good long while before a proof-of-concept level saxophone becomes a good saxophone. The maker here says that his second try will be “near perfect” which I think is a bit of an overstatement. Still, kudos to the guy for doing something quite difficult and having the passion to do something like this for free and share it with the world.

A Really Nice Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece Facing

Tue, 29 Jul 2014 19:52:18 +0000

One of the less common things to see around is a nice mouthpiece facing, freely given. Perhaps this is because refacing is not something you should try lightly (and if you do, prepare to ruin a lot of mouthpieces until you get good at it), or perhaps because the facing curve is not so well understood. Even though a purely mathematical curve can be applied with reasonable success, I have never found a better method for my amateur status as a refacer than finding mouthpieces I love and writing down the facings- and often, these facings don’t fit a pure mathematical curve, so either I like imperfect facings or imperfect facings aren’t so imperfect. This particular mouthpiece is my hands-down favorite 7 facing, and the one I try to emulate whenever I put a 7 tip on a tenor mouthpiece. So if you are a refacer, or if you would simply like to try your hand at the craft (again- tread lightly and don’t work on anything valuable unless you are either a professional or a world-class A-hole and don’t mind permanently ruining something that would otherwise last until next century) here is a really great tenor 7 facing.

Martin Committee III (aka "The Martin") Tenor Saxophone

Fri, 27 Jun 2014 23:18:14 +0000

SOLD

This is an exceptionally fine original condition Martin Committee III aka “The Martin” tenor saxophone made in 1946, which currently wears its original pads and is in line for a full overhaul with flat metal resonators. The original lacquer is about as perfect as you see on these older Martins (which have notoriously delicate lacquer) and there is even some lacquer overspray remaining on the pearls, indicating that this horn was barely played. You can look for a long while for a more physically clean Martin tenor from the golden era, but I’m not sure you’d find one. This is a beautiful survivor of a bygone era, ready to make music again after a long sleep. Think of owning a saxophone like this one this way: someone like you will be playing this horn in 100 years, and someone like me will be overhauling it.

Conn 6M Transitional Alto Saxophone w/ Overslung New York Neck

Fri, 27 Jun 2014 22:08:43 +0000

SOLD

This is a freshly overhauled Conn 6M transitional alto saxophone from 1934 with the “New York” neck. This saxophone is in nearly flawless condition and comes with its original case, mouthpiece, ligature, mouthpiece cap, and Conn pad measuring tool. As a result of the excellent work on the part of the Conn designers and a fresh full mechanical rebuild, the action is quick, quiet, and tight and the horn is extremely responsive and easy to play. The tone is warm and slightly focused (though not as focused as the later 6Ms), and it plays very well in-tune while retaining much of the power of the previous Conn model, the New Wonder Series II (aka “Chu Berry”) while being a massive improvement in build quality, ergonomics, and intonation.

How I Polish Silver Saxophones

Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:32:01 +0000

Conn 8M C-Melody with “Naked Lady” engraving, overhauled by me.

One of the more common questions I get from someone who has recently browsed my galleries and horns for sale is “How do you polish silver?” or sometimes “How can I polish my saxophone to make it look like yours?”

Well you can’t polish it like I do without a full disassembly and removal of all corks, felts, and pads. So my way can’t be done outside of an overhaul, but hopefully you will find this instructive and helpful whether you aim to do it yourself or whether you just want to be more informed about the process.

A King Feast

Sun, 27 Apr 2014 12:27:22 +0000

I am lucky enough to live down the street from Brian from GetASax.com, and every once in a while we find that between the two of us we are in temporary possession of an unusually full grouping of a particular type of saxophone. Last time, it was a Conn night. This time, it was Kings. Between the two of us (mostly him, but I did have the tenor Zephyr Special which he didn’t have one of) we had enough Zephyr Specials and Super 20s and even a Saxello to cover the soprano part, and even a Powell Silver Eagle, which is based on the Super 20 to take some rather amazing photos, if you are into this sort of thing. Enjoy!

1941 King Zephyr Special Tenor Saxophone

Sun, 27 Apr 2014 04:14:48 +0000

SOLD

Photos above are pre-overhaul. This saxophone was reserved prior to overhaul, and received a restoration customized to its new owner’s specifications.

Airstream Workshop

Sun, 30 Mar 2014 04:37:04 +0000

In late 2013, I found out that my landlord was going to be selling the house we were renting to a family member in early 2015. I was also running out of space in my home workshop, and with one toddler running around and another child on the way, I needed a better workshop. But, I didn’t want to put down a building on land I didn’t own, and I also didn’t want to pay rent for a space in town. So I decided to get the classiest thing I could find on wheels and turn it into a saxophone repair shop.

On Learning A Craft

Fri, 14 Mar 2014 04:53:45 +0000

Last night I was reading through my “new” Woodwind Quarterly magazines that I bought just a few days ago in a nearly complete collection from another repairman. These are old, repair-centered periodicals that were published for a brief time in the 1990s until 2001. Very geeky, extremely interesting, and packed with amazing knowledge. I’ve never read them before, and I am finding them fascinating reading. I also happened to be reading at night during a power outage, so I was reading in silence by oil lamp.

Crossroads of Saxophone Craftsmanship

Sun, 23 Feb 2014 03:29:08 +0000

Yesterday evening, I found out that the Powell Silver Eagle project had been “suspended”. The Powell Silver Eagle was a made-in-America high-end saxophone being built by a partnership between E. K. Blessing (based in Elkhart) and Powell Flutes. To reduce this partnership to extreme basics, you have lots of money (Powell) combined with know-how and tooling (Blessing) doing their best to make a handmade high-end saxophone in the United States. Hype was good, reaction of those who played the prototypes was good, and to those of us on the outside the forecast seemed sunny.

Why Buy From Stohrer Music?

Wed, 22 Jan 2014 03:49:59 +0000

Note: I rarely have saxophones for sale these days as I am kept busy (and usually running behind) on regular customer repairs- so if you have come here and don’t see any up for sale, it just means I don’t currently have any for sale. If you are looking for saxophones online, my first and strongest suggestion is to get one from Brian at Getasax.com. He is honest, pleasant to deal with, loves vintage saxophones, is super knowledgeable, and has a good return policy. He also has a good deal of my time reserved (he waited like everyone else) and you can have him get me to overhaul a horn you are purchasing from his site- I charge him my normal price, he charges you exactly what I charged him.

Understanding Saxophone Key Fitting: Hinge Tube and Post Facing

Thu, 02 Jan 2014 15:22:50 +0000

A large part of the mechanical rebuild service I provide is invisible to the end user. The result of the job can easily be felt by the player, but the actual mechanical work that is done is literally out of sight, though key fit has repercussions for the adjustment materials that can be used, the pads that can be used, the seal of the pads, and more- and it is the type of work that can only be done during a full overhaul. For a little primer on why key fit can have such far reaching effects, watch this video here.

Lacquer Overspray on Original Lacquer Selmer Saxophones

Thu, 12 Sep 2013 19:19:33 +0000

On Selmer saxophones of certain vintages, the last coat of lacquer was applied after the horn was complete including padwork. They would cork the keys shut and apply the last coat, which resulted in the pad leather outside of the tonehole having a very light coat of lacquer. I’m not certain when exactly this started or stopped, but I have seen it from Balanced Action through Mark VI, maybe a Mark VII. Its only meaning is that it is an additional way to sometimes tell if a Selmer has its original pads.

Why Overhaul A Saxophone?

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 18:05:33 +0000

One of the recurring questions I get is a variation on “Should I overhaul my horn?”. This question- almost without exception- comes from players who have never gotten a horn overhauled, and don’t understand why they should put a relatively large amount of money into an overhaul vs. just take it into the shop for $50-100 worth of work every few months.

The fact that I only get this question from people who have not experienced a good overhaul should tell you something- as should the fact that I get this question often! A saxophone overhaul is one of those things that once you do it (and its done well) it makes sense- and often you can’t imagine ever going back to playing horns that are less than perfectly set up. But there is precious little information on WHY exactly an overhaul is a good thing, and its a pretty big leap of faith to take the first time. But a full overhaul is often not only cheaper in the long run but better for your playing, and here is why.

1940 Conn 26M VIII, Original Lacquer

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 16:31:55 +0000

SOLD

This is a 1940 Conn 26M with the VIII stamp on the body and neck, in original lacquer with original case. It came to me with original pads, and will be overhauled for sale. The overhaul is included in the price.

Selmer Radio Improved Alto Saxophone, Original Silver Plate

Wed, 24 Jul 2013 15:52:03 +0000

SOLD

This is an original silver plate, excellent physical condition Selmer Radio Improved alto saxophone, made in France in 1935. I have just overhauled this saxophone, where it received a stripping of the clear coat of lacquer someone had sprayed on it sometime in the near past as well as a full mechanical rebuild of the keywork. Pads were installed with Tenor Madness reusable brass resonators and this horn plays GREAT and is ready to go for years and years of reliable service right out of the case.

An Extremely Informal Comparison of Two Otherwise Identical Horns Save For Plating

Wed, 10 Jul 2013 03:10:43 +0000

Pictured above are two Couf Superba I tenor saxophones. They are within 2000 serials of each other, are both in very good original condition with fully intact original finishes, and have both been overhauled by me at the request of their owners to have exactly the same setup- same pads, same resonators, exact same key heights, overhauled by the same repairman- and unlike most new horns, they are demonstrably leak-free.

1932 Conn 6M Transitional Alto Saxophone, Silver Plate (SOLD)

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 23:13:10 +0000

Here are some “before” photos:

And here are some “after” photos (yes its the same horn):

**SOLD **

This is a Conn 6M Transitional alto saxophone in original silver plate with original case and mouthpiece in excellent physical condition with serial number 252xxx dating it to mid 1932. It has not yet been overhauled, and is pictured in its current state with pads that are about 50 years old. The tarnish will clean completely off during the overhaul, and this horn is going to look close to new. There are no dents or dings, and the horn appears to have been played very little. After the overhaul, it will provide years of dependable service and with proper care it will be around making music a hundred years from now, and probably a hundred years after that.

Buffet Super Dynaction Tenor Saxophone, Museum Condition, Fresh Overhaul

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:29:59 +0000

SOLD

This is an original lacquer nearly mint condition Buffet Super Dynaction tenor saxophone, hand-built in France in 1971 with serial 18xxx. Originally sold in Canada, it has its original case, which is different from the US version, along with its original strap, mouthpiece, mouthpiece cap, ligature, and an unopened box of Rico brown box tenor reeds. The original keys to the case are even still strapped to the handle.

Vito "Duke" by Beaugnier Baritone Saxophone, Handmade in France 1960's, Original Pads

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:21:28 +0000

SOLD

This is an excellent original condition original lacquer original pads Vito “Duke” baritone saxophone, hand made in France for Vito by Beaugnier, a small factory that made horns for Leblanc, Noblet, and Vito.

The build quality is excellent, and the saxophone plays very well. Serial number 19xxx means it was built in the early 1960s, which is the best era for Beaugnier, a firm whose quality and craftsmanship easily competes with Selmer, SML, and Buffet instruments- the other French professional saxophones of the era. If you have been looking for a professional quality, handmade baritone saxophone that hasn’t been beat up for less than the cost of a decent used car, read on.

New Website!

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:30:05 +0000

Or rather, a complete redesign. Expect some hiccups, but please report any weirdness you find so I can fix it. Migrating images from the old one to the new one is proving to be rather difficult, and I have learned a valuable lesson: don’t use Wordpress themes that put all of your media in a non-standard folder!

This new look was chosen for several reasons:

Emphasis on content. As I create more articles and videos, I want a way to show those more readily on my website.

Black Pearls on Wartime SML Coleman Hawkins Special Tenor

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:18:52 +0000

This is a closeup of the pearls on the upper stack of a 1943 Strasser-Marigaux-Lemaire (SML) Coleman Hawkins Special.

The Coleman Hawkins Special is a fantastically rare instrument in itself, but what makes this one even more interesting is that it was made while France was occupied by Germany in World War II. Saxophone production in France slowed to a trickle during the occupation, as the brass and other materials used in instrument manufacture as well as manpower and machinery were diverted to the war or unable to be imported in the first place. Nonetheless, a very few saxophones were made, and some bear witness to the strained conditions under which they were produced. If you are lucky enough to come across a French saxophone made during the occupation, you may see black pearls on the keywork- and sometimes even bakelite pearls, as the pure white mother of pearl became difficult to obtain. Sometimes only a few are black, sometimes all are black, or sometimes it will be a fairly even mix. On this horn, all pearls but the bis, front F, and chromatic f# are black pearls.

1939 Selmer Balanced Action Tenor Saxophone

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 18:34:15 +0000

SOLD

This is a 1939 Selmer Balanced Action tenor saxophone, serial number 292xx, made in tail end of the final year before World War II decreased Selmer’s output to a trickle. It is the twin to my personal alto from the same time period, and I am sorely tempted to keep it, but I already have a great tenor and if I keep all the horns I want to keep I wouldn’t have a home to keep them in. Besides, there are not many Balanced Action tenors still around, and this one should be out making music somewhere.

1953 SML "Rev. D" Tenor Saxophone in "Gold Plate"

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:27:59 +0000

**SOLD and overhauled to the new owners specifications. Want one for yourself? Get in touch and tell me to find one for you. **

This is a 1953 Strasser-Marigaux-Lemaire (SML) tenor saxophone, with original Perma-Gold finish, in very good physical condition. It is scheduled for an overhaul, and the price includes this work.

Ok, ok- so I can almost hear you wondering: Why did you put “Gold Plate” in quotes? What is Perma-Gold? Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it does not look as if SML made many (if any) saxophones of this era that were actually plated in real gold. Instead, if the horn looks like this one- a combination of buttery-yellow matte and flat finish- the horn is actually the Perma-Gold finish, which is a zinc dichromate plating over zinc (not gold over silver). It wears off in flakes like lacquer rather than slowly wearing through like plating and was a finish used only by SML, though it can still be found used in other non-musical instrument applications today. It doesn’t tarnish and it doesn’t polish, and it will burn with excessive heat just like lacquer. Unless they actually DID use any real gold plate (which I am not convinced they did outside of a few exhibition horns) this was their top-of-the-line finish, and it looks the part, real gold or not.

Buffet Super Dynaction Tenor Saxophone, Almost New Condition

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:36:49 +0000

SOLD

This is a 1972 Buffet Super Dynaction tenor saxophone in nearly original condition with the original case and warranty card- which hasn’t even been filled out yet! The physical condition is nearly immaculate, with only a couple small scratches to show for being over 40 years old. It still plays pretty well on its original pads and corks, but I will be overhauling it for sale with flat metal resonators to make it perfect- overhaul included in the price.

Stohrer Music News: 2013

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:17:47 +0000

Whew, what a year. 2012 was challenging and rewarding and I learned about as much as I have in any one-year period of my entire life.

On a personal level, in early 2012 my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world, a happy little chubster named August who has given me new focus and perspective as I experience the world anew from his point of view.

Vintage Ads

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:06:02 +0000

Some scans of vintage ads I have collected over the years. If you have high-quality scans or original ads you would like to send my way for inclusion in this gallery, let me know. If you would like a copy of any of these ads in full resolution (too big for my hosting), send me an email.

There are no watermarks on the files. Share and Enjoy!

1930 Conn 12M Transitional Baritone Saxophone "Art Deco" Engraving

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:33:58 +0000

Click on the photo for an even higher resolution image of the beautiful engraving pattern from an extremely rare Conn 12M Transitional baritone saxophone in gold plate with the art deco engraving pattern.

Just beautiful.

Original 1931 Conn Alto Saxophone Warranty Booklet

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:48:44 +0000

A complete Conn warranty booklet from 1931 from a early New Wonder II style transitional alto with art-deco engraving and raised side E key. All photos will enlarge when clicked.

1931 Conn alto with fresh overhaul by me.

Conn 6M "Transitional" Saxophones

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 18:18:04 +0000

This article includes (with permission) information from posts on the forum at Saxontheweb by saxophone historian/geek Paul Lindemeyer, author of Celebrating the Saxophone, and photos and information from Brian at Getasax.com. Both Paul and Brian are fellow Conn lovers, and this article would not have been possible without their help. Because I have left most of what Paul wrote intact with only minor editing, I have put his name next to sections for which he is mainly responsible. Some information may repeat between what I wrote and what he wrote, but trust me there is a ton of information here and the read is worth it if you are interested in Conn transitional altos!

The Beauty of Saxophones: Fully Engraved 1932 Selmer "Cigar Cutter" Alto Saxophone

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 04:07:24 +0000

I am lucky enough to work with and see many beautiful and rare saxophones, and these days it takes something rather special to make my jaw truly drop. This past week, completely unexpectedly, a saxophone came through my shop which is about as rare and as beautiful as any saxophone out there, and I am extremely happy to share it with you: a one-of-a-kind 1932 Selmer Super Sax of the “Cigar Cutter” variety, fully engraved from the neck cork to the bell rim, including every single pad cup (yes, even the octave pad cups) and the post feet.

The Beauty of Saxophones: 1928 Conn F Mezzo-soprano

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:52:46 +0000

This is a 1928 Conn F Mezzo-soprano saxophone, freshly overhauled by me.

These saxophones in the unusual key of F were introduced months before the market crash of 1928, and only a few were sold- to those rare customers who were both saxophone crazy* and* had disposable income during the Great Depression. The unsold horns- which were the majority- were used as fodder at the Conn repair school. As a result, not many of these unique instruments survive, and even fewer still in this condition.

Why the Saxophone is Beautiful

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 02:01:57 +0000

I have always found the saxophone to be a beautiful physical object. I have often wondered as I work, what it is about the appearance of the saxophone that makes it so beautiful to me? Why, when its main purpose is to produce sound, does it look beautiful?

The sound of the saxophone is the sound of a cone of vibrating air. We change the length of the cone (by opening and closing pads) to change the fundamental frequency and sometimes also overblow the fundamental frequency of this cone of air to change the pitch. So each pitch we hear a saxophone play is a certain sized cone of air, resonating in one of its harmonic frequencies. This is simple physics, and all of the beauty and mystery of the sound we hear comes down to this:

Putting Time Back On The Clock

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:04:25 +0000

I recently overhauled a 18xxx serial Selmer Super with the geared octave mechanism. It was totally thrashed- three times relacquered, all sorts of problems, resolders, broken keys, repair shortcuts layered over jerry-rig upon patch job. You get the picture.

It took about twice as long as normal to rebuild the mechanics. It was the first horn in long time where I finished it with bruises and blisters on my hands (and I’ve got some pretty good callouses going). It was ugly as sin, too. And all the while I am working on this costly project I am wondering to myself did we make the right choice to rebuild this saxophone? But when I finally got it put together and played it- man, what a beautiful sound. It was even, in-tune, and lush. The name could barely be read on the bell anymore but the sound said everything you needed to know.

Vito "Duke" alto saxophone, handmade by Beaugnier in France

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 23:03:50 +0000

SOLD

This one was supposed to be for my personal collection to match my Vito “Duke” baritone, but my eyes were a bit bigger than my wallet. I am loath to give it up! But without further ado…

This is a Beaugnier-made Vito “Duke” alto saxophone in good original condition with original lacquer and even with its original Leblanc case. The Vito “Duke” is one of the last horns Beaugnier made, and they are excellent saxophones through and through with a wide-open tonality that can blow the walls down. Construction is excellent, ergonomics are very friendly (though if you have large sausagelike fingers, the left hand pinky table may be too small for you), intonation is good, and did I mention the tone?

Holton 232 Alto Saxophone (sleeper handmade in USA pro horn!)

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 22:05:17 +0000

SOLD!

This is a post-war but pre-buyout Holton 232 alto saxophone, a professional model that is identical to the Holton 234 “Stratodyne” (which was their absolute top-of-the-line and the best horn they ever made) with the exception of some aesthetic differences (engraving, key guards) and the design of the octave mechanism. The bore is the same as the Stratodyne, and just like the Stratodyne, under the fingers it is a comfortable horn, intonation is good, build quality is very good, and the tone is great- fat and full and rich.

Late 1950s Noblet (Beaugnier) Tenor Saxophone, Handmade in France

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:13:23 +0000

SOLD

Looking for a vintage hand-made French tenor saxophone in excellent and unmolested physical condition? One with a fresh top-shelf overhaul by a top-tier saxophone specialist who knows and loves them? Would you like it to have good intonation, ergonomics that won’t break your fingers, excellent quality construction, a powerful and bottomless tone that will put most other saxophones to shame? One that will only appreciate in value as time goes on? Oh and how about all of that for $2200?

Collectors Condition Conn Transitional Alto Saxophone with Original Warranty

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 22:08:49 +0000

SOLD

Well here is a pretty amazing find.

This is a very early Conn 6M transitional alto saxophone with original case, original mouthpiece, original neck strap, original lyre holder, and original warranty booklet. It has never been overhauled, and still sports its original pads from its manufacture in 1931. This is an exceptionally rare find in my experience for a Conn, and before now I have only seen one other horn with its original warranty booklet. That makes this horn a saxophone that will play great, look beautiful once I overhaul it before sale, and be a good collector’s investment.

Conn Transitional 6M Alto Saxophone

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:55:38 +0000

SOLD!

Here is what it looked like after it was done:

This saxophone is pictured prior to overhaul- unpolished! It will be overhauled prior to sale and will look nearly new.

This is a mid-period Conn 6M transitional alto saxophone from 1932. It features 6M-style upper and lower stack keys, Eb/C cluster, palm keys, side keys, octave mechanism, and underslung double-socket neck. It has a rather rare variant of the LH pinky table- 6M style linkages with left hand bell keys, but a New Wonder Series II style pinky table- although slightly tweaked from the New Wonder Series II. And of course it has the transitional-only feature of the swivel thumbrest. This saxophone features the art-deco style engraving, which is a beautiful design only seen for a few years during the transitional run.

Couf Superba I Tenor Saxophone in Black Nickel

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 21:43:28 +0000

SOLD

This is a rather more rare variant of an excellent saxophone, the Couf Superba I.

The Couf Superba I was made by Keilwerth, and is the predecessor to the SX90R series of saxophones which are still sold today (in fact, I am a Keilwerth dealer, so if you want a modern one, I can do that too!). This is a professional model saxophone, featuring rolled toneholes, a wide bow and large bell, high F# key, and black nickel plate finish. The ergonomics are very good with oversized pearls, intonation is good, and the tone is warm, lush, and ballsy. Great horn for jazz, R&B, rock, gospel, soul… the list goes on. These are excellent saxophones, and I am a fan of them.

Finding an Audience for Jazz

Thu, 24 May 2012 15:46:00 +0000

“Jazz simply needs to continue doing what made it great in the first place: engage with popular culture in an intelligent, nuanced and sophisticated manner, as some successful groups are doing today. If there is any hope of audience building, this is where it lies. It must be organic, visceral and culturally relevant, qualities which cannot be consciously conjured by an audience development committee.”

NPR Jazz has a thought-provoking blog post by Kurt Ellenberger titled “It Can’t Be Done”: The Difficulty of Growing a Jazz Audience where he makes the point that in many places, the very language we use to define the “problem” of modern jazz is what prevents us from finding the answer.

Yamaha "Purple Logo" 62 Alto Saxophone

Sun, 06 May 2012 15:48:36 +0000

SOLD

This is an excellent original condition Yamaha “Purple Logo” YAS-62 alto saxophone. It comes in its original case, and will be overhauled before sale- and if you catch me before I do the overhaul, it can be done to your specifications.

The “Purple Logo” series YAS-62 was made from the late 1970s until the early 90s, was Yamaha’s top of the line model at that time, and is different in both feel and tone and construction to the modern version of the YAS-62. It possesses all of the best qualities one is looking for in a modern saxophone- excellent Yamaha quality construction, modern ergonomics, excellent intonation- with the fullness and richness of tone you associate with a vintage horn. Modern Yamahas are excellent saxophones to be sure, but their tone can be too clear and pure for some folks (yours truly included). This sax is a different breed of Yamaha, and represents (alongside the Yanagisawa 880) one of the best values in the saxophone world today if you are looking for modern ergonomics. It truly is the best of both worlds- rich vintage tone with modern ergonomics and scale, and craftsmanship that is hard to beat.

A Short History of Amati Saxophones by Dennis Gazarek

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This 2008 article has been reprinted in whole with the permission of its author, Dennis Gazarek. The opinions in this article are the author’s and I reprint it here without any edits. -Matt

AMATI Saxophone: A Short History by Dennis Gazarek
#

The history of saxophones and other instruments produced by the predecessors of Amati-Denak is complex, confusing and convoluted. The instrument makers were directly impacted by European wars of the Twentieth Century, Nazi and Soviet expansionism and the Cold War. My goal is to provide some insight in the evolution and revolutions that have taken place to result in the Amati-Denak company of today. I will leave it to some scholar in the future to write the definitive history, with names, details and facts that I have not included in this short summary. I admit my Czech-Canadian heritage and that I am a bit of a ‘shill’ for the Amati brand. I do believe that Amati’s line of saxophones and instruments deserve a fair consideration from Canadian and American consumers.

Saxophone Adjustment Materials: The Stohrer Method

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:22:26 +0000

Saxophone Adjustment Materials by **Matt Stohrer **

Everybody knows about pads, everyone has an opinion on resonators or whether plating makes you sound better, and you can google your way through most of a simple DIY saxophone overhaul or at least with enough time spent begin to understand why your horn does what it does- but there is a hole in the saxophone repair body of knowledge when it comes to detailed information about adjustment materials. The adjustment materials are the corks and felts, the synthetic felt and leather and teflon and ultrasuede and synthetic cork and shrink tubing and sorbothane and the dozens of other materials repairmen use on your saxophone to make it work. Adjustment materials are what make keys work together with precision, what allows you to play an instrument with more keys than you have fingers. Adjustment materials are also what control the heights of the keys and therefore influence intonation and response, and also keep the complicated metal machinery of a saxophone operating smoothly in silence. These materials are not just an afterthought- **in fact they are integral to having your saxophone feel good under the fingers, seal well over a long period of time, have smooth and even action, and keep the keywork studio-quiet. **

The Beauty of Saxophones: 1938 Martin Handcraft Committee II

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:33:34 +0000

This is an all-original survivor, a rarity among Martins from this period whose notoriously delicate lacquer has survived nearly completely intact after 74 years.

Most often when you see nickel keywork on a lacquered body, you think student intstrument. But it was not always so- indeed the nickel (or sometimes plated silver) keywork against lacquer was a premium option in the first half of the 20th century and it was only later that it was co-opted (most likely for nickel’s durability) for student instruments such as the original Bundy, the King Cleveland, and so forth (though now days these instruments are more like intermediate horns compared to what a modern student instrument is).

Interesting Selmer Information from Jerome Selmer

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:09:26 +0000

I attended a clinic where the Director General and head of Research and Development of Selmer (Paris) Jerome Selmer gave a historical presentation and graciously and patiently answered questions from the audience of saxophone repairmen (and one Taiwan-based competitor) for nearly two hours. Some interesting things he mentioned:

The Mark VI and Reference horns are 66/34 alloy brass (note: common trade name for this alloy is “yellow brass”)
The S80 is 70/30 alloy brass (note: common trade name for this alloy is “cartridge brass”)
The S80II and Reference horns share body tubes and bows, but have different necks and bells
The S80III differs from the S80II in neck and upper body taper (as well as some tonehole placement), bell and bow are the same
The Jubilee horns have toneholes that are .2mm taller (about .007 inches, or the thickness of an 3x5 index card)
The bells on most horns (except special editions and baritone/bass) are not hand hammered anymore because the workers kept getting wrist injuries
Toneholes are made by mounting the body on a mandrel and cutting the hole by CNC machine, but the toneholes are pulled with a mechanical device controlled by a worker
The body and neck seams used to be brazed, now they are welded
The necks are straight cones, filled with ice and bent by hand (I would have expected hydroforming! I was surprised to hear this, and I am kind of blown away it is just a straight cone)
They may eventually move to machine engraving, and a few S80 horns are already in circulation that have early experiments with machine engraving
Until the 1970s, none of the knowledge on how to build was written down- it was all in the heads of the workers, and passed on from one generation to the next
The R&D department is already working on the next Selmer model- and the eventual goal is to have one model of saxophone across the board (like back in the day)
The R&D department is working on an acoustic reference blueprint of “the Selmer sound”- a waveform they can strive for when designing new horns
The R&D department has the top technicians in the company and can prototype a new instrument in about 15 days

Vintage Emblems

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:20:51 +0000

A joint project with Brian from GetASax.com showcasing the manufacturer emblems from vintage saxophone cases.

1951 Martin "The Martin" Committee III Tenor Saxophone, All Original

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:36:21 +0000

SOLD

This is a one-owner 1951 Martin Committee III tenor in excellent shape, with original lacquer at 95%, original case, serial-matched neck, no dents or resolders, action is tight, original end plug. This saxophone came to me with its original pads and is getting its first-ever overhaul for sale. Even the original lyre holder- the first I have ever seen on a Martin Committee III- is in the (original) tri-pack case. This horn was obviously loved by its owner and well taken care of, and soon will be making music again, and should continue making music for decades to come.

Kohlert Winnenden Tenor

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:04:17 +0000

I recently overhauled a 1954 Kohlert “Winnenden” tenor saxophone and was impressed with its tone, ergonomics, intonation, and construction- which features rolled toneholes and relatively modern ergonomics. The tone is dark, woody, and full- and tons of fun to play with a really dig-deep cupboard-rattling capability.

Repair-wise, the design of the horn presented no special challenges- if you can repair a Leblanc or a Conn well (which is unfortunately not as common as it should be), you are fully capable of overhauling one of these. If you only do modern horns and Selmers, be prepared to spend a little extra time figuring out what the builders of this instrument meant for you to do! Construction is single post, rolled toneholes, large and very slightly concave pearls. Front F, non-automatic G# (G# is not activated by the rest of the pinky table), left hand bell keys. The original pads (see pictures below) seem to have been very similar to a Conn Res-O-Pad, except with a large rivet in the center instead of a flat washer resonator/rivet combination. I overhauled this with regular pads and flat metal resonators and I am very pleased with the results.

Low C# Stiff on a Conn 10M

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:02:25 +0000

This is something I posted in a forum a little while ago. The question was “My low C# is stiff on my Conn 10M. What springs do I adjust to make it better?”

As is often the case with good saxophone repair, the answer lies deeper and the knowledge required is greater than you might think.

Here was my reply:

“The difference in necessary spring tension for a mechanism with bad adjustment materials and lost motion to a mechanism that is perfectly tight, perfectly fit, slick and free is enormous. Start there, work your way backwards to the springs.

RARE Keilwerth New King Series II Alto Saxophone

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:47:02 +0000

SOLD

Now here is a really rare saxophone.

This is a Keilwerth New King Series II alto saxophone- one of only about 500 ever produced, and the only Keilwerth horns ever to have soldered and beveled toneholes (like a Martin). Not much is known about these saxophones, except that they were produced only for a very short time after Keilwerth moved from Czechoslovakia to Germany after World War II. Rumor has it these are exceptional instruments, and they rarely show up for sale, and even rarer still in good condition.

Yamaha "Purple Logo" YTS-62 Tenor Saxophone

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:29:43 +0000

ON HOLD - SALE PENDING!

The Yamaha “Purple Logo” saxophones represent a fantastic value in saxophones: modern ergonomics and intonation, warm and full vintage-y tone, and prices lower than either a new horn or most vintage saxophones. It is a combination that is hard to beat, and people who have played one will tell you its a horn that is undervalued.

This tenor was built in the 1980s, and has held up very well. Physically it is straight with no dents, lacquer has scratches but is fully intact. This saxophone is presently undergoing a full repad where it will get disassembled, cleaned, toneholes checked and perfected, and all new pads with flat seamless metal resonators in it for a fat and warm sound.

Stohrer Music News, January 2012

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:03:35 +0000

My news updates are infrequent enough I have forgotten which volume I am on, so January 2012 it is.

This update is actually taken in major part from a very kind thread about me under “dealer evaluations” on Saxontheweb.

So, it’s 2012.

I’m insanely lucky enough to be fairly booked for repairs for this whole upcoming year (with the exceptions of locals and previous clients, whom I will always make time for), and I’m going to be spending all of my extra time this year focusing on adding products to my website. I am currently a P. Mauriat, BAM, and Protec dealer, and I hope to also add several more product lines this year- in addition to more vintage mouthpieces and horns. One that I am excited about and working on is possibly becoming a Keilwerth dealer (cross you fingers for me!)- which would get my same new saxophone setup included in the price- and maybe some mouthpiece lines as well. Since I am a small-time one-man type of deal, and I am doing all of this on my own with no loans, progress is slow but sure. In fact, the way I’ve got it set up, my repair services put food on the table, and 100% of my sales of cases, horns, mouthpieces etc. is reinvested into more products- and in some cases like my upcoming machining class this spring into knowledge I can directly put to use in your service.

Videos

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:47:41 +0000

I have my own YouTube Channel that I have been making videos for since 2011. As of 2025, I have over 200 videos and 20,000 subscribers. I aim to continue making videos for as long as I repair saxophones. To see them all somewhat organized (along with articles and other stuff) see The Index.

I have a series called “Repairman’s Overview” where I talk about a particular make/model using a horn I have recently overhauled, as well as a series called “Saxophone Repair Topic” where I walk through the steps of a particular repair procedure.

Thanksgiving 2011

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:00:01 +0000

I am thankful for so much this year. My amazing wife as ever, a new place to live in the country like we’ve dreamed about, a garage, a thriving business, cool and friendly new neighbors, a reliable car, an incoming son, and of course all of you- my friends and my customers who put warmth in my heart and food on my dinner table. Thank you and have a happy Thanksgiving.

How to Choose a Saxophone Mouthpiece

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:20:41 +0000

Choices, choices.

Choosing the right mouthpiece for you can be a daunting task. You’ve got an almost infinite amount of choices, and from among them you are expected to find exactly what works for you without being able to try them all and many times without the most basic knowledge as to what actually makes a mouthpiece a good mouthpiece.

The main problem is not only is each mouthpiece a little different- each horn is a little different and each player is very different. The combinations are endless, and what works for one person might not work for another- and conversely, what one person thinks is the worst sounding mouthpiece they’ve ever played might the a very good mouthpiece for their friend.

Vintage Saxophone Calendar!

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:37:27 +0000

I’ve gotten some of these for the shop every year since they’ve been made, and also been submitting pictures and luckily getting my pictures put in! This year though I’ve got the cover, which is pretty cool. Its a photo I took a while ago (should actually be in the gallery here) of a Selmer Super (Balanced) Action low Bb baritone in the empty room above me in the warehouse in Brooklyn where I had my first solo shop.

Couesnon Low A alto, the OTHER low A alto.

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:33:46 +0000

Well, this is a rarity. On eBay this week is a Couesnon alto saxophone with low A!

edit: there are actually two on eBay this week. How strange! I’d love to own one of these some day.

Word of the Day: Cymatics

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:15:27 +0000

This is pretty cool stuff.

“Cymatics (from Greek: ???? “wave”) is the study of visible sound and vibration, a subset of modal phenomena. Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste, or liquid.[1] Different patterns emerge in the exitatory medium depending on the geometry of the plate and the driving frequency.” from Wikipedia

Should I repad my horn?

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:06:27 +0000

I’ve recently started a repair column over at BestSaxophoneWebsiteEver and my first column was “Should I repad my horn?”. Might sound like an easy question, but there is so much involved to be able to make this decision properly, and so much information that the consumer should know so they are aware and happy with their decision and the resulting situation! As you might expect from me, I dove in and gave a long-winded but hopefully informative answer.

Stohrer Music News, Vol. 2

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:54:56 +0000

So, lots going on, quick post from the middle of it all for an update.

I am now a dealer for BAM France cases, also Pro-Tec cases. If you don’t see what you want in stock, let me know and I can order it.

I did an interview for a sax website a while back, it got such a positive response I now have a repair column, for which I write monthly-ish.

1939 Keilwerth New King Series I alto saxophone, silver plate

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:08:26 +0000

SOLD

If you are looking for a very interesting and rare piece of saxophonic history and a barn-burner professional alto at a bargain-basement price, you’ve found it.

This is my 1939 Keilwerth New King series I alto saxophone. This one is silver plate, is in excellent physical condition, and is engraved “King” on the bell and “Modell 3” under the serial.

1935 Conn 6M alto saxophone, silver plate and Metro neck

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:22:57 +0000

SOLD

This is a beautiful condition early Conn 6M professional alto saxophone, serial 268xxx in original silver plate.

Built in 1935, this horn features the STD’D M (Metro) neck, the rocking right hand thumbrest, and underslung microtuner neck.

These horns are known for their big sound, super comfortable ergonomics (although for some players the left hand pinky table can take some getting used to) and lighting fast action. The craftsmanship on this saxophone is second to none, built in America’s foremost musical instrument factory at the height of its art.

1940 Conn 10M Tenor Saxophone, Original Lacquer

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 23:34:45 +0000

SOLD

If you’ve been waiting for a Conn 10M that possesses all of the qualities that make the 10M one of the best saxophones ever made, you’ve found it.

This is a beautiful pre-war Conn 10M tenor saxophone with rolled tone holes and original lacquer in very good condition. It has just been completely overhauled with flat metal resonators, and it is tight, light and slick under the fingers and plays with a monumentally huge and effortless tone. Intonation is excellent, and it is very mouthpiece-friendly.

Looking for Something Special?

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:44:35 +0000

Don’t see what you want here, or anywhere? Tired of the search, can’t find exactly what you want, don’t know what would be best, or worried that you might make a costly mistake? If so, you are in the right place.

When you use my Find-A-Sax service, I will use my knowledge, experience and connections to find you the perfect sax for your situation, overhaul it perfectly and deliver it to your door.

Conn New Wonder/6M Transitional Alto Saxophone

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:43:33 +0000

SOLD

This is a 1930 Conn “Transitional” alto saxophone, one of the earliest variations to be found as the Conn saxophones evolved from the New Wonder Series II (aka “Chu Berry” horns) to the M-series saxophones.

This saxophone has split bell keys, a microtuner neck, a New Wonder II style left-hand pinky table, and the rare art-deco style bell engraving. It is in nearly flawless original silver plate, in very good undamaged mechanical condition, and is scheduled for an overhaul with flat metal resonators. It comes in its original case.

Repair Services

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:13:21 +0000

I am a saxophone repairman. I specialize in making your horn right. When I work on a saxophone, each and every time I want to make it a saxophone that the father of the saxophone Adolphe Sax could pick up and be proud of, something that would give him peace of mind that his legacy is being looked after by people who love the instrument. I care about doing things the right way, and fixing things so they do not need to be fixed again. When I overhaul your saxophone, your horn will be as Mr. Sax intended it to be, and you will experience what it is like to have a horn that wants to make music.

Mouthpiece Refacing

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:11:01 +0000

I offer mouthpiece refacing services. Contact me for details.

Original Literature From a 1935 Conn Saxophone

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:00:25 +0000

Here is a rare find, something that was given to me as a birthday present from a good customer of mine. This is the original warranty booklet from a 1935 Conn saxophone, along with the Conn pad measuring tool.

Very interesting reading, and several pieces of good advice from yesteryear that still apply today. Click the thumbnails for a high-resolution version. I love the design on the cover.

Anybody know whose initials those are on the tested by/inspected by?

The Beauty of the Saxophone: Pre-War Conn 10M

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 17:49:47 +0000

The Conn M-series saxophone, manufactured by C.G. Conn in Elkhart Indiana from 1935 to 1959. In my opinion, one of the most beautiful saxophones ever made, and an example of American design and craftsmanship at its finest.

Information on the M-series saxophones:

[Update 2023, some links to stuff I have made since this was published: Video: Saxophone Repair Topic: Conn Pivot Screw Lock Screws Video: Repairman’s Overview: Conn 10M Tenor Saxophone Video: Repairman’s Overview: Conn 26M and 30M “Connqueror” Alto and Tenor Saxophones]

Dorfler & Jurka - Sounds Like Ikea Lamps, Plays More Like A Keilwerth

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:50:57 +0000

Dorfler and Jurka was a German saxophone maker who at times made horns as a contractor for Julius Keilwerth and made horns based on Keilwerth designs to sell under their own name. To add to the confusion, D&J stenciled out saxophones to many of the same companies to which Keilwerth did the same, and names on the stencils were shared for the Keilwerth-based stencils and the D&J stencils. And since the D&J horns were based on Keilwerths, it can be VERY hard to tell the difference!

Links

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 04:26:34 +0000

Gear

Getasax.com - fine used saxophones, vintage and modern. I do overhauls on some of the horns on this site. Now also a maker of incredibly great replica mouthpieces.

Morgan Mouthpieces - My favorite modern mouthpieces.

Ted Klum - My other favorite modern mouthpieces.

SaxQuest - Saxophones (& other gear), vintage and modern. Affiliated with Saxophone.org (link below)

Meridian Winds - Okemos, MI

Repairers

There are a lot of repairers out there, and these are not the only good ones. They are just the ones I know well enough, and have seen enough of their work, and have heard good things over a long period of time, to recommend. I hope to add more to this over time.

1953 SML (Strasser-Marigaux-Lemaire) "Revision D" alto saxophone

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 23:21:23 +0000

SOLD

This is a beautiful 1953 made-in-Paris SML Revision D (Rev. D) alto saxophone in original lacquer. This design, with its rolled toneholes, stack adjustment screws, opposite-sprung octave mechanism, and removable neck locking ring would form the basis for SML’s “Gold Medal” model after winning several gold medal awards at the International Music Exhibition at The Hague in the mid-50s. It won these awards with very good reason- these are some of the best horns ever made. Intonation and ergonomics are excellent, and the sound is lush, huge, and powerful.

Fitting a Martin Committee ("The Martin") Neck

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:03:52 +0000

Martin Committee neck showing the teardrop overhanging the neck tenon.

Martin Committee saxophones pose a special challenge for neck fitting because of the teardrop hanging down in the way of the tenon. This, combined with the thickness of the tenon itself, make for a neck that can only be adjusted in one particular way.

This is not a difficult job, but it is one that takes finesse and foreknowledge. Fixing a botched neck fit job however IS a difficult job, so my advice is to use this information to help you make the correct decisions when taking your horn to a repairman rather than as a guide to try it out yourself unless you are already a repairman.

Original Selmer (Paris) saxophone spring set from the 1920s

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 01:08:53 +0000

This is about as hard core as saxophone geekiness gets.

If you had been the owner of a Selmer curved soprano about 90 years ago and you wanted a spring set, this is what you would have gotten in the mail- it would have cost you $2.15, and it would have cost 12 cents to mail it to you from NYC.

To watch in 1080p HD, click through to watch on youtube.

Gold-Plated Martin Handcraft Baritone Saxophone (High F)

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 22:07:02 +0000

SOLD

This is a **gold-plated **1928 Martin Handcraft baritone saxophone, keyed from low Bb to high F, recently overhauled with reso-tech reusable brass dome resonators.

It plays very well, with a rich, dark and powerful tone. The horn itself is in excellent physical condition (especially for a baritone) and the overhaul work done (Mike Hammer in Philadelphia PA) is very well done. I have gone over it and refreshed it for sale, and it is ready to play for many years right out of the case.

Stohrer Music News, #1

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 01:43:06 +0000

Hello! So here we are. New website, new products, new location, new email, new phone number. Find my contact info in the contact section, find my repair information in the repair services section, read about me and my philosophies in the about and philosophy sections respectively.

This website, as you can probably tell, is still getting touched up. I am building it myself, so don’t be surprised if you see some hiccups. If you see anything strange, let me know.

Contact

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 01:57:31 +0000

Please note: I am currently booked solid for the foreseeable future, and am only taking work from previous clients. **However I am happy to help with saxophone questions when I can. **

I am a one-man shop and lucky to be very busy, so please read this whole page before contacting me so we can have an optimal experience together.

Unless you have information I need to remember/refer to later, I vastly prefer phone calls. If you call and I cannot pick up, leave a message. If you call repeatedly and do not leave a message, know that I am likely trying to seat a pad, or do dentwork, or solder something, and I cannot pick up because my hands are actually busy and I have to listen to phone ringing all the way through while I am trying to concentrate. If you call repeatedly without leaving messages, I will set your number to silent from then on. This still seems to happen a lot though ¯_(?)_/¯

Customer Reviews

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 15:07:22 +0000

Reviews from customers of Stohrer Music.

Bill Sadler - Honest & Elegant Artistry

Matt is one of the best in the world. He knows the ins and outs of all styles of vintage horns and how to get them to play their best. My Martin Committee III tenor has never felt better.

Matt is honest, forthright, and worth the wait. You will not believe how easily your horn plays and responds. You want easy-mode on sax? Have Matt work on it.

Yanagisawa Factory Tour

Mon, 16 May 2011 04:10:42 +0000

In 2008, I had the lucky experience to be given a tour of the Yanagisawa saxophone factory in Tokyo, Japan. When I came home I wrote about my experience on the saxophone forum SaxOnTheWeb. That article is now duplicated here to make it easier to find. Yanagisawa liked what I wrote and has linked here from their own website.

Yanagisawa themselves also has their own excellent factory tour on their website now, added in 2011.

Old Gallery

Mon, 16 May 2011 04:09:33 +0000

The old gallery from the original website. All sorts of interesting saxophone and saxophone repair related items. Click any image to enlarge.

Selmer Mark VI Soprano: American Engraving, Silver Plate

Sun, 15 May 2011 06:05:24 +0000

You just don’t see these every day. I am in the middle of cleaning up this horn, and the silver plate is so bright and thick that if I hadn’t seen it tarnished and cleaned it up myself I’d wonder if it was exceptionally classy nickel plate.

Beautiful and rare example of a Mark VI soprano.

Why Cheap Saxophones Are Cheap

Sun, 15 May 2011 06:02:10 +0000

Curt Altarac, a fellow saxophone repair specialist here in North Carolina put together a great article at MusicMedic.com based on the experience of one of his apprentices fitting the keys (aka rebuilding the mechanics) of a cheap East Asian import sax.

Any of you who are repairmen reading this are immediately getting clammy, and perhaps getting cramps in your hands just thinking about it. And if a former apprentice of mine is reading this– see? I’m not cruel and unusual. Just cruel.

The Plastic Saxophone

Sun, 15 May 2011 05:57:01 +0000

A company based in Thailand has made a plastic saxophone, called the Vibrato. had a chance to test out a Vibrato model A1S and take a look at the mechanics from a saxophone repairman’s point of view.

(Click on any photo for a high resolution version)

In the wayback times, an English company made an acrylic saxophone aimed at professionals called the Grafton . They are fragile, rare, and difficult– but possible– to repair. But when you find one in good shape, they play very well. Charlie Parker famously played a Grafton for a while.

The Original Mark VI Booklets In Their Entirety

Sun, 15 May 2011 05:55:37 +0000

I love original literature, be it ads or booklets or price lists, and I collect them as I come across them. Here are some high-quality scans of the booklets that would have come with your new Selmer Mark VI saxophone. Click on any image for a high resolution version.

The Unprofitable Valley Or: Why So Much Stuff Is Mediocre

Sun, 15 May 2011 05:54:16 +0000

Originally written in July 2010, at the ripe old age of 29

The shortcomings of language and barriers to consumer knowledge have divorced value from price, and created an unprofitable valley that traps and kills many good products, services, and innovations to keep the status quo a sea of mediocrity.

Ever try to find a good mechanic for your car? A good painter for your house? A good repairman for your saxophone? Chances are that if you have, you have found it difficult to find someone who will do the job right, and price is not always an indicator of good quality.

On The Forked Eb (aka Eb trill) On Vintage Saxophones

Sun, 15 May 2011 04:56:26 +0000

On older horns, sometimes you’ll find that the right hand E pearl is disconnected from the E pad cup, and through a rather complex mechanism is attached to a tiny key opposite the low D. This is a mechanism called the forked Eb, and when in proper working order allows you to trill from D to Eb by raising your middle finger instead of using your pinky on the Eb key.

Why is my C, D, E, A stuffy? Why does it have a different tonal color?

Sun, 15 May 2011 04:55:57 +0000

** **Obviously some stuffiness is caused by leaks, damage, supoptimal key heights, octave issues (particularly with upper A and C), etc. But what about when you’ve taken it to a competent tech and worked on it and nothing seems to be helping? Well, the following information may help you.

Some notes on the horn are vented by one or more open toneholes directly following, some notes are not. The notes that are not, like D, E, A, middle and upper C- have to deal with relatively less venting than those with more than one open tonehole directly following, and this can sometimes affect intonation or the relative stuffyness of the note.

My spiel on equipment, setup, and the vintage Selmer thing

Sun, 15 May 2011 04:55:21 +0000

** ** The following is an email I received asking a variation of an Eternal Question I seem to get pretty often, followed by my response.

“Hello Matt.I am mailing you to tell you about a Keilwerth New King Tenor I have bought and playing. I put it through a repair shop and it plays so well that the Selmer SBA tenor that I own has been sent to the repairers with instructions to try and get it to play as well. the JK is 27xxx serial no .Please can you tell me why this horn plays so well, wen its worth a fraction of the value of the SBA |I whish I had had it from the start.Best Wishes. -xxxx”

Early Keilwerth Saxophones

Sun, 15 May 2011 04:54:06 +0000

Early Keilwerths

I have recently become a big fan of early Keilwerths, around the serial 10xxx to 21xxx.

There is a picture of the New King and the Modell 3 I speak about in this article in the gallery.

To get up to speed on Keilwerth New King/Tone King and their stencils, go to http://www.saxpics.com/keilwerth/newking.htm and give it a good read.

Ok, so now that you’ve read that, I have seen some horns that don’t totally add up with the serial chart Pete has up, although it is a very good general guide. I think the best way you can figure out which horn you have is going to be first by general serial number range, and then (and almost as importantly) what is on the horn itself. I think that the serial ranges may even overlap sometimes, as I have a Tone King with sheet metal keyguards that looks very much like a New King Series I, although it is firmly in the serial range that should be the plastic keyguard model.

Otto Link Mouthpieces, Past and Present

Sun, 15 May 2011 04:53:49 +0000

Otto Link Mouthpieces, Past and Present

This guide was NOT written by me- it has been generously given to me to publish here by MN, and I have it up here with his permission to help anyone who is wanting to learn more about the differences between Otto Link mouthpiece models. Also check out my links section and go to mouthpiecemuseum.com for more information.

If you would like to reprint this elsewhere, please contact me first and I will put you in touch with the author.

Dolnet "Royal Jazz" Overhaul Report

Sun, 15 May 2011 04:52:41 +0000

** ** I recently performed a full overhaul on a Dolnet Royal Jazz alto saxophone in gold plate. The Royal Jazz is the same as a Bel Air model, with the addition of a microtuner on the neck, a high E trill, a forked Eb, a high F# (which on this horn was configured as a fourth palm key), and G# trill key. This particular horn was in satin gold plate with flat gold plating on the keys and engraving, with a protective coat of lacquer, a very rare finish for Dolnets.

Doing Business With Stohrer Music

Tue, 03 May 2011 04:49:34 +0000

I am a one-man saxophone repair and sales business. I deeply appreciate your patronage, and I aim to make doing business with me a straightforward and rewarding experience. If you have any questions about doing business with me, please get in touch.

Trades: I accept trades as full or partial payment towards repairs and items that are for sale. To make a trade offer, please email me as many high-resolution photos as will fit to stohrermusic@gmail.com as well as as much information as you know about the history and condition of the instrument or mouthpiece you are offering for trade .

Matt's Philosophy

Sun, 01 May 2011 23:26:40 +0000

In an era of almost infinite choice of merchants on the internet, I strive to make the value of doing business with me stand apart from my competitors. I take more time and expend more effort to make sure that working together is good for both sides- because at its best, business improves life for everyone involved in the transaction.

This is what I believe in, and this is how I do business.

Welcome to Stohrer Music. on Stohrer Music

Specs & Data

Saxophone Serial Number Lookup

Adolphe Sax's Last Patent: A Man Ahead of His Time

Leblanc Saxophone History

Original C.G. Conn Letterpress Blocks

JustATuner

Features #

Stroboscopic Tuner #

The Second Selmer Balanced Action Alto Ever Made

Solid Silver Rampone & Cazzani Saxello

Conn 30M rescue!

Some interesting Selmer Balanced Action engraving

Stohrer Sax Shop Companion

Burnished Gold Plate 1931 Conn 6M with Norton Springs!

Darts for Pad Backs!

Free Strobe Tuner

1928 Conn F-Mezzo

Flat pads

Buffet SDA baritone

Worn neck strap ring repair

Pad Sets Library

F-mezzo oddity!

Just finished and up next

Conn 18M "Stretch" Soprano Saxophones

SML tenor with no maker's mark

Key Heights Library

Saxophone Serial Number Lookup

Sources #

Screw Specs Library

Stohrer Music News, January 2026

New Gallery

1968 Conn Product Manual

1951 King Super 20 Silver Sonic

Another Super 20 alto

Super 20 puzzle keys

But wait, what kind of neck is that?

Martin Workhorse

Tree sax

Padwork work

Original pads Mark VI

Other projects- Nixie Clock!

1957 Martin literature

Neck fitting example

1941 Conn 10M

Flat pads

StroboConn journey

Old documents from Indiana Library

SML alto with "permagold" finish

But what is a StroboConn

StroboConn is alive!

Stohrer Music News, August 2025

How To Make Saxophone Pads

Neck fit (bad) example

Projects projects projects

Road Trip

Silver Plated King Zephyr Special

Replacement real pearl rollers

A bit of grumping

Some original factory miscellany

A visit to Adolphe Sax's grave

Another pup on a Buescher

Couesnon low A Monopole Conservatoire

Paul Coats: Runyon Mouthpiece Memories

Conn Lead Foil Pads

J.J. Babbitt Factory Visit

Kohlert "VKS" Alto Saxophone

SML "Le Strama" Rev. B Alto Saxophone (like Coleman Hawkins Special)

Conn NWII Transitional in Burnished Gold Plate

Gold Plated King Zephyr Special

Stohrer Music News, October 2022

Saxophone Repair Information

Re-absorbing Open Source Saxophone Project Content

Vintage Orsi Contrabass

My Take-Home Tools

Selmer Super Balanced Action Tenor - Original Gold Plate

Stohrer Music News - Late 2021

Index of Saxophone Repair Content

(sold) 1933 Conn 6M Transitional Alto Saxophone

Yanagisawa 991 alto in black lacquer

Features
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Stroboscopic Tuner
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Sources
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A saxophone should be clear about its origin.
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A Possibly Wrong Primer on Musical Instrument Engraving
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Tools: Level One
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Selmer "Radio Improved" Transitional Baritone Full Overhaul - Before